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THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 



THE 
ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 



BY 

FREDERIC C. HOWE, Ph.D. 

AUTHOR OF 

'THE HIGH COST OF LIVING"; "WHY WAR" ; "THE MODERN CITY AND ITS 

PROBLEMS"; "SOCIALIZED GERMANY"; "EUROPEAN CITIES AT 

WORK"; "PRIVILEGE AND DEMOCRACY LN AMERICA" 

"THE CITY, THE HOPE 01 DEMOCRACY"; ETC. 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1919 



-Hi 



Copyright, 1919, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published January, 1919 




JMJ 29 1919 
©a A 5 11 453 



PREFACE 

It is of the utmost importance that America 
should know the kind of peace it wants. For 
America has lost her isolation. She has be- 
come a world-power. Our economic relations 
are as wide as the world. The peace which 
follows will determine our foreign policy. It 
will make for permanent peace or it may lay 
the mines of future wars. 

Previous peace settlements have been in- 
terim arrangements negotiated by the ruling 
classes. They have been truce agreements. 
War has, in fact, been continuous. At times 
it was a war of diplomacy. At intervals it be- 
came armed conflict. But in some form or 
other Europe has been at war for the last fifty 
years. The conflict was not always between 
the same Powers. Alliances shifted. The 
points in dispute were often far apart. But 
the controversy revolved about the same kind 
of imperialistic interests; the possession of 
territories, strategic points and waterways, 
trade routes and concessions belonging to other 



vi PREFACE 

people. As a result of this struggle almost all 
of Asia, the whole of Africa, the entire Medi- 
terranean basin, and the islands of the seas, with 
a combined population of half a billion people 
have been made subject to the greater Powers. 

That is why Europe could not make a peace 
that was permanent. The subject world would 
not remain subject, and the division would not 
remain satisfactory to the warring Powers. 
Such peace as the world enjoyed was merely a 
breathing-space in which to prepare for the 
next war. Imperialism is war smouldering. 

This book is a study of imperialism. It is 
admittedly fragmentary. For the history of 
imperialism is the history of the diplomacy and 
foreign relations of Europe, as well as of the 
conquest and exploitation of a great part of 
the world. It is also a study of the economic 
forces responsible for imperialism; of the in- 
terests that mined the world with explosives of 
the most dangerous kind. 

The war has created conditions in America 
that are making us imperialistic. Our foreign 
commerce has shot up to $9,000,000,000 a 
year. We are building a great merchant 
marine. We have become a creditor nation. 



PREFACE vii 

We already have billions in foreign investments. 
We are creating the most powerful navy in the 
world. Dollar diplomacy is being boldly de- 
manded; and dollar diplomacy leads to eco- 
nomic imperialism. Economic imperialism is 
the forerunner of force, of conquest, of wars. 
That has been the sequence of imperialism in 
all of the greater Powers. 

That is why the kind of peace is so important 
to America. For the time may come when our 
new-born economic internationalism may chal- 
lenge the monopoly of the earth, the closed doors, 
the spheres of influence, the trade preferences 
enjoyed by the European Powers. An imperial- 
istic peace with the world distributed as in the 
past may close a great part of the w T orld to our 
trade. Our new-born commerce and our great 
merchant marine may be constricted. Our 
expanded industry may become explosive. Un- 
employed men are a danger to the existing so- 
cial order. They, too, may be receptive to 
imperialism, to a demand that no nation and 
no settlement shall stand in the way of their 
employment. That is the psychology of a state 
saturated with surplus wealth seeking an outlet. 

We cannot assume that America is immune 



viii PREFACE 

from the forces that have driven Europe into 
the struggle for territories, privileges, and mo- 
nopolies. Our activities in Mexico do not jus- 
tify any such confidence in ourselves; nor do 
the connection of our financiers with the Chi- 
nese six-Power loan and their pressure for 
diplomatic support for penetration into China 
and Central America. 

America cannot accept a short-sighted im- 
perialistic peace that redivides the world be- 
tween the European Powers. Should we ac- 
cept such a peace the time may come when the 
imperialistic classes in America will say: "We, 
too, demand a share. We, too, insist that we 
shall participate in the monopolies, privileges, 
and opportunities of exploitation now exclu- 
sively enjoyed by other Powers." Or they may 
demand the open door, a fair field, and no favor. 
But the demand will come too late, should 
America yield its sanction to an imperialistic 
peace. 

Imperialism is at war with democracy. Im- 
perialism will mean a great navy, diplomatic 
intervention, possibly force, and a continua- 
tion of armed conflict all over the world. That 
has been the history of the past fifty years since 



PREFACE ix 

surplus wealth emerged from the great Powers 
and began the exploitation of the earth. To- 
day America is the only great Power with money 
to loan. We are possessed of colossal surplus 
wealth. Our iron, steel, copper, munition- 
making and banking institutions are merged 
into what is in effect a great syndicate, as 
they are in the imperialistic nations of Europe. 
They have not hesitated to demand recognition 
and guarantees for their war-made trade and 
profits. They have urged dollar diplomacy and 
a strong foreign policy upon us. They frankly 
avow imperialism. But imperialism means 
conflict. It means a standing army, a great 
navy and their possible use as a threat to the 
unprotected world. 

This book is a plea for freedom, for freedom 
in all of the relations of states. Freedom is 
the alternative to imperialism, to exclusive 
possessions, to the closed door, to preferential 
tariffs and the control of trade routes or stra- 
tegic places on the earth's surface. It is an 
attempt to anticipate and avoid war rather 
than to provide means for the arbitration of 
disputes after they have arisen. And in this 
is to be found the distinction between those 



x PREFACE 

who would provide for a league of nations to 
adjust the controversies of nations and those 
who would remove the cause of such contro- 
versies, and by so doing prevent them from 
arising. A redivided world with an interna- 
tional police force to protect a division of the 
spoils is an advance on war but it is not a means 
of avoiding armament, militarism, fear, and 
the forces that make for war. 

Under modern industrial conditions it is 
conflicts springing from economic forces that 
are mainly responsible for war, forces that seek 
the ownership or control of other peoples' lands, 
territories, trade, resources, or the land and 
waterways which control such economic op- 
portunities. The wars of the past were largely 
dynastic. Those of the future will be economic. 
And economic wars can only be avoided by 
freedom, freedom in all of the relations of life. 
This is the big lesson of the French Revolu- 
tion, of the liberal legislation that is identified 
with the names of Cobden and Bright, of the 
relations of the United States and Canada, of 
the smaller states of Europe. It is the lesson 
of nature as well. 

The peace ideals of America, as formulated 



PREFACE xi 

by President Wilson and supported by the 
people, are those of freedom, of liberty, of 
equality of opportunity. They are ideals of 
autonomy to small nations and subject peoples. 
They are a challenge to the political philosophy 
which has guided the ruling classes of Europe 
for centuries. These ideals, and only these, 
offer a foundation on which to erect a durable 
peace. 

Imperialism is at war with the ideals and 
traditions of America. It is at war with the 
freedom of the world and of civilization as well. 

Frederic C. Howe. 

New York, November I, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

CHAPTER 

I The Old World and the New — 

Economic Internationalism . i 

II Imperialism 23 

III The Heart of the War ... 33 

IV The Birth of German Imperialism 41 

V Economic Penetration into Tur- 
key 56 

VI Berlin to Bagdad 65 

VII The Bagdad Railway Concessions 71 

VIII The Oriental Railway and the 

Royal Road to the Orient . 80 

IX World Empire 93 

X The Deutsche Bank and Finan- 
cial Imperialism 105 

XI Conflicts of High Finance . . 112 

XII The Economic Conquest of Eu- 
rope 122 

XIII The Dream of Empire .... 136 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PACE 

XIV The Economic Menace to the 

British Empire 144 

XV Diplomatic Controversies . , 154 

XVI Why the War Came When It Did 168 

XVII The Strategic Centre of the 

World . 176 

XVIII The Rights of States .... 186 

XIX A Monument to Peace ... 191 

XX The Rebirth of the Mediter- 
ranean . 200 

XXI Guarantees of Peace .... 207 

XXII Encourage the Small Nations 

and Subject Peoples . . . 215 

XXIII Pax Economica 224 

XXIV End Imperialism 229 

XXV America and the Menace of Im- 
perialism 244 

XXVI Diplomacy 249 

XXVII The New Internationalism . . 255 



THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 



CHAPTER I 

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW- 
ECONOMIC INTERNATIONALISM 

The world has undergone a revolutionary- 
change since the days of Gladstone and Bis- 
marck. The industrial revolution, the growth 
of imperialism, the extension of sovereignty be- 
yond old territorial limits, and, most important 
of all, the conflicts of the industrial and financial 
classes, have so changed international relations 
that a controversy in the most distant portion 
of the globe may set all Europe ablaze and 
bring into the arena of warfare millions of peo- 
ple who have little interest in the conflict and 
who do not know what the controversy is about. 

Our ideas of the state are still those of earlier 
generations. We trace the limits of a nation 
as they appear on the map. We think of Eng- 
land, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria- 
Hungary as confined within eighteenth-century 
borders. This was the Europe of yesterday. 
It is not the Europe of to-day. States have 
burst their political confines. They live out- 



2 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

side their territorial boundaries. Their eco- 
nomic interests are as wide as the world. Their 
foreign connections are only less vital to their 
lives than their internal affairs. Nations have 
become international. Their wealth is scat- 
tered all over the world. Their life is inter- 
laced with the life of other states. And the 
sovereignty of states has gone out with their 
wealth to the most distant parts of the world. 
It has penetrated into every continent and to 
every sea. 

The outside connections of states are as 
sensitive as the old national boundaries. Trade, 
shipping, and finance have interlocked the di- 
vided world into a world-state. But the old 
political concepts remain. The new is in con- 
flict with the old. Any threat to economic con- 
nections or distant relations is immediately 
registered in the Foreign Office. It becomes a 
matter of diplomacy. The existence of a 
nation may be threatened by failure to safe- 
guard economic connections. That is one 
reason for war. 

The old nationalistic world has passed away. 

The rulers of Europe, trained in the old 
nationalism, met this economic change by im- 



THE OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW 3 

perialism. They could only think in imperial- 
istic terms. They viewed distant territories 
as they viewed their lands at home. They 
kept other Powers out. That is the way 
rulers had done for hundreds of years. That 
was the only way the ruling classes, for the 
most part still feudal, knew how to adjust the 
old nationalism to the new internationalism. 
The need for food, for raw materials, for mar- 
kets, for opportunities for trade, for strategic 
routes and harbors, could only be supplied by 
conquest. Imperialism was the result. 

England has long since ceased to be a Euro- 
pean state. Her life is overseas. She is fed by 
all the world. Four people out of five live in 
towns and cities. Were the food supply and 
raw materials of Great Britain interrupted 
her people would starve. Her mills would close. 
Her cities would be filled with hungry men and 
women as they were during the Civil War 
when cotton from the Confederate States was 
unable to reach British harbors. 

Britain is the carrier of the world. Her 
ships link the colonies with the mother country. 
They, too, would suffer economic collapse if the 
sea routes were interrupted. Australia, Can- 



4 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

ada, India, South Africa are so interrelated 
and so dependent upon an English market that 
any disaster to the economic life of Great Brit- 
ain would bring economic disaster to them as 
well. For England is the world's market- 
place. The people of all countries do their 
buying and selling in the British Isles. Ships 
load and unload in British ports; her ware- 
houses are rilled with commodities from other 
countries. The foreign commerce of Great 
Britain amounts to #5,000,000,000 a year. 

England is the world's banker. Lombard 
Street is the centre of international exchange. 
This, too, means wealth and economic power. 
The debits and credits of the world are cleared 
through the great banking establishments of 
London, just as the debits and credits of the 
United States are cleared through Wall Street. 
British banks have branches all over the world. 
They are reporting agencies of political and in- 
dustrial conditions. They watch other Powers. 
They register changes in trade; they note the 
rise of German, American, or French influence 
in China, South Africa, South America, or any 
other trading-point. The banks are also brok- 
ers of concessions. They promote and build 



THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 5 

railroads. They place contracts. They sell 
munitions. They are interlaced with all of the 
big industrials of England. They also make 
public loans. 

England lends money to the world. She is 
the great reservoir of credit of all other nations. 
British capital has financed British colonies. 
It has financed weak and dependent states. 
It has built railroads, opened mines, promoted 
rubber, cotton, oil, timber, and other activities 
all over the world. These investments are 
made by the banks. They spring from ground 
rents, shipping, industrial profits. And they 
are protected by British diplomacy and the 
British navy. England's annual income from 
overseas investments amounted to a billion 
dollars a year before the war. British foreign 
investments amounted to #20,000,000,000, in 
19 1 4, or more than the combined foreign in- 
vestments of the rest of the world. Her 
foreign trade, shipping, and other foreign in- 
terests amounted to possibly #10,000,000,000 
more, or a total of $30,000,000,000. The total 
wealth of England is only $85,000,000,000. 

Germany, like England, has become an inter- 
national state. She, too, lives by contact with 



6 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the outside world. Germany secures her iron 
ore from Lorraine which she took from France 
in 1870. This is the basis of her power. For 
in Germany steel is recognized to be king. The 
firm of Krupp not only makes munitions, it 
builds ships. It manufactures structural steel 
of all kinds. It builds railroads, harbors, 
docks, canals. It is one of the greatest trusts 
in the world. The German electrical trust has 
ramifications in other countries, as have a score 
of other concerns. Germany's overseas foreign 
trade fell only short of that of England in I914. 
It amounted to $4,900,000,000. Her mills 
and factories are dependent upon the outside 
world for raw materials just as her people are 
dependent upon the outside world for food. 
And any interruption of the source of supply 
would weaken or destroy her life. It would 
threaten the industrial and financial structure. 
German industries, like those of England, 
have been seeking raw materials all over the 
world. They went to Morocco for iron ore. 
A district at Kiaoutchau in the Shantung Penin- 
sula was taken from China after the murder of 
two German missionaries because it contained 
valuable iron-ore deposits. The unappropri- 



THE OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW 7 

ated parts of South Africa were seized as a 
jource of supply for cotton. Asia Minor and 
Mesopotamia were wanted for wheat, cotton, 
oil, and other raw materials. 

With the growth of industry Germany or- 
ganized great banks with branches all over the 
world. Foreign trade is dependent upon bank- 
ing. And the German banks have been organ- 
ized into wonderful agencies for aiding industry. 
Along with these, half a dozen great exploit- 
ing banks, of which the Deutsche Bank is the 
chief, have been organized for economic pene- 
tration and exploitation. These banks negoti- 
ate public and private loans; they promote the 
sale of munitions; they shape the policy of the 
Foreign Office; they are closely interlaced with 
the government, with diplomacy, with the big 
industrial syndicates which they have financed 
and organized. And in recent years German 
money has ventured overseas in search of in- 
vestments. Her foreign investments amounted 
to #6,000, 000,000 in 1 91 3. 

German}- developed her merchant marine as 
an aid to commerce. It was built with great 
rapidity. Her tonnage was growing faster 
than that of any other country in the world 



8 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

prior to the war. Germany, too, wanted to be 
a world clearing-house like England. But she 
was a protectionist country. So the cities cf 
Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck were made 
free ports. No customs duties have to be paid 
within these harbors. They are free-trade 
zones. Germany saw the advantage which 
free trade gave a country in handling the wealth 
of the world. She saw how England had ad- 
vanced to her industrial powers because of her 
freedom from tariff barriers. And the rapid 
growth of Hamburg is traceable to the fact that 
within its harbors the wealth of other coun- 
tries can come for shipment and reshipment, 
to be warehoused, to be held until ready for 
transhipment to some other port. 

Germany has utilized her great banking 
agencies to develop trade connections. They 
have borrowed money from England and 
France. This has been used in turn to exploit 
France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Balkan 
states. French money was used to build the 
Bagdad Railway, nearly a third of the money 
coming from French investors. The public 
utility corporations of South America are 
largely owned in Germany, as are the indus- 



THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW g 

tries of the Balkan states, Turke)', and Asia 
Minor. In this way Germany added to her 
banking capital. In this way she built up her 
industries. 

France, too, is an international state. She, 
too, is imperialistic. Next to England, she is 
the great money reservoir of the world. Her 
foreign investments in 1914 amounted to 
$9,000,000,000. And these investments are 
owned by millions of peasants and workers, 
who have been led to place their savings in 
bonds and securities sold in small denominations 
of $20, $50, and $100. And the financial power 
of France is to be found in the savings of the 
peasants. Popular support of imperialism in 
France is traceable to the fact that the invest- 
ing class includes almost the whole popula- 
tion. 

French investments are for the most part in 
the Mediterranean countries and in Russia. 
They are scattered in the Far East, in Africa, and 
in Mexico. French money built the Suez Canal. 

France has also developed a substantial trade, 
especially about the Mediterranean. She has 
promoted foreign relations by French schools, 
by scholarships in Paris, by the maintenance of 



io THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

a press, and other agencies for moulding pub- 
lic opinion. 

Russia is also dependent on the outside world. 
Russia is a peasant state. Almost the whole 
population is agricultural. There is but little 
industry. And the great part of her industrial 
life is -under the control of German, English, 
and French interests. Russia has to buy from 
the outside world. And she can only reach it 
through the Dardanelles, the Mediterranean 
and the Baltic Seas. For her ports on the Arctic 
Sea are closed during a great part of the year. 

Russia has to find a market for her wheat, 
her timber, and her oil. She has to maintain 
lines of communication to England and France. 
Moreover, Russia is a debtor country. She 
borrowed heavily for military purposes, for her 
railroads, for internal improvements. Her loans 
are mostly held in France. And she can only 
pay the interest on these securities by the sale 
of wheat. In other words, Russia exchanges 
wheat, oil, and timber for machinery, loco- 
motives, farm implements, clothing, and the 
industrial and domestic needs of her people. 
This is why an outlet to the Mediterranean has 
been the consistent aim of Russian foreign 



TUB OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW n 

policies since the time of Peter the Great. The 
control of the Dardanelles has been the object 
of Russian diplomacy, just as control of the 
Mediterranean has been the object of British 
diplomacy. The economic life of Russia, even 
her military strength, depends upon free and 
unchallenged contact with the outside world. 

Moreover, Great Britain, France, Germany, 
and Russia have ceased to be European states. 
They have colonies, possessions, and depen- 
dencies all over the world. Only 10 per cent, 
of the population of the British Empire is in 
the United Kingdom. 

From this it is to be seen that the Europe of 
Gladstone and Bismarck is gone, never to re- 
turn. The old boundaries have been razed by 
trade, finance, and shipping. The foreign 
trade of the world amounts to #35,000,000,000 
a year, while the exposed investments and 
interests of the warring Powers in other coun- 
tries are not far from #40,000,000,000 more. 

The classes which rule Europe have also 
changed. Up to about 1880 the old eighteenth- 
century landowners, the Junkers, and the Tories 
were the ruling classes, and the government of 
Europe reflected their interests. It thought in 



12 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

their terms and they thought in terms of con- 
tinental Europe. But the feudal classes be- 
came investors, bankers, and traders. They 
owned ships; they possessed foreign securities. 
They were promoters, directors, stockholders in 
foreign undertakings of all kinds. They grew 
rich from the ground rents of the cities and 
the peasants. And their profits went into com- 
mercial undertakings. During these years the 
bourgeoisie rose to political power. By the 
end of the century it superseded the feudal 
aristocracy in its wealth. It became the im- 
perialistic class. As time went on it was 
merged with the old feudal aristocracy. The 
bourgeoisie has its own party; the Liberal party 
in England and the National Liberal party 
in Germany. The feudal landowners also 
have their party; the Tory in England and the 
Conservative in Germany. These parties re- 
flect the economic interests of the bourgeoisie 
and landowners. They differ on domestic poli- 
cies, but their imperialistic interests are the 
same. By intermarriage, by interlocking in- 
terests, they have become a political oligarchy. 
And in the closing years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the great industries and banking interests 



TEE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 13 

were organized and consolidated into trusts, 
syndicates, cartels, and monopolies, just as 
they were in the United States. This was true 
of all the major industries such as iron, steel, 
munitions, shipping, chemicals, cotton, and 
wool. And these industrial monopolies were 
merged again with the banking institutions 
which brought them into being. This was par- 
ticularly true in Germany, in which country 
the Grossbanken were interlaced and inter- 
locked with thousands of corporations in which 
they held securities. By the close of the cen- 
tury industry had become dynastic; only less 
dynastic than the old feudal classes. And it 
was imperialistic. It was vitally concerned in 
trade, commerce, shipping, and banking. It 
was concerned over trade routes, strategic 
places, and especially over colonies, conces- 
sions, and spheres of influence, from which 
came the food of the people and the raw ma- 
terials for the industries which this merger con- 
trolled. 

It is to be remembered that politics is largely 
concerned over the things the ruling classes 
own. And the ruling classes of Europe own a 
great part of the wealth of the outside world. 



14 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

They own the railroads, mines, banks, planta- 
tions, resources, docks, shipping, and com- 
mercial undertakings of Asia, Africa, South 
America, Australia, and the islands of the 
seas. 

Thus, the political life of all the Powers is a 
reflection of their economic life. This is par- 
ticularly true in foreign affairs, which have 
become very largely, almost exclusively, con- 
cerned over economic interests. A study of 
the treaties, conventions, and discussions of 
the past fifty years shows the extent to which 
economic considerations have dominated every- 
thing else. Each nation jealously protected 
the monopolies, privileges, and interests of its 
ruling classes. It watched the penetration of 
other nations into Africa, South America, 
China, Mexico, and especially into the states 
bordering upon the Mediterranean. The whole 
world was engaged in diplomatic controversies 
over spheres of influence. It was concerned 
over trade routes, strategic harbors, the free- 
dom of the seas. Great navies were built for 
the protection of their trade, their overseas 
colonies, their spheres of influence and invest- 
ments. Foreign relations have become eco- 



TEE OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW 15 

nomic. Political considerations are secondary. 
The Foreign Office has become an agency of the 
business and imperialistic life of Europe. 

The world has been kept in the dark as to all 
these things. We know very little about the 
diplomatic moves from 1900 to 1914; we know 
very little about the negotiations, the intrigues, 
and the irritations of the past fifty years. The 
foreign affairs of states are secret. They are 
carried on in the dark. Democracy is not per- 
mitted to know what takes place in Downing 
Street, Wilhelmstrasse, Quai d'Orsay, or even 
in the State Department at Washington. Rep- 
resentatives in Parliament, the Reichstag, the 
Chamber of Deputies, or Congress, are igno- 
rant of contractual relations with other nations. 
Foreign ministers are not responsible as are 
other ministers. When questioned they re- 
ply: "Reasons of state make it inadvisable 
to disclose our obligations, commitments, or 
relations with other Powers. " Diplomacy is 
shrouded in mystery as it was in mediaeval 
times. 

Moreover, diplomatic affairs are still in the 
hands of the aristocracy. The hereditary 
nobility guides the destinies of states as it did 



16 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
when ambassadors were personal representa- 
tives of the King. Democracy has made but 
negligible progress toward the control of for- 
eign relations. It still stands with cap in hand 
outside the door of the Foreign Office. 

Secret, economic diplomacy has much to 
answer for in this war as it has for all the wars 
of the past fifty years. And diplomacy is in 
the hands of men with but little, if any, sym- 
pathy for democracy. They think in narrow, 
nationalistic terms. The foreign service is 
recruited exclusively from men of wealth and 
social position. They enter the service young. 
They live apart. Their world is one of in- 
trigue, of deception, of scoring on some other 
nation. That is the object of diplomacy. 
The ambassador is a general. He wins battles, 
if he can. That is his means of advancement. 
But to score on a rival nation means that it 
will score in return. So diplomacy is often an 
agency of war. 

Even the language of diplomacy is that of 
mediaeval times. It is a jargon of its own. It 
can hardly be understood by plain men. It is 
not direct. It uses equivocal words. Diplo- 



THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW 17 

macy is still in a state of arrested development. 
It thinks in terms of the eighteenth rather than 
of the twentieth century. It is not responsible 
to the nation. It is not democratic. It involves 
nations not only in suspicions but in wars as 
well. And in recent years diplomacy has be- 
come an agency of economic imperialism; it 
is the trade representative of empires. 

During the last few years new political forces 
have been disturbing Europe. They were chal- 
lenging the feudal-industrial oligarchy. The 
Socialist-Labor parties were learning the use of 
the ballot. They were breaking into the Reichs- 
tag, Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. 
They were challenging control of domestic 
politics and in so doing they were challenging 
the power of the ruling classes to control their 
states in international affairs. For the new 
social democracy was international-minded. 
It was opposed to imperialism. It challenged 
secret diplomacy. It demanded disarmament. 
It threatened the economic-political-diplomatic 
structure. The ruling classes were further 
concerned over industrial conditions because 
of their effect upon political conditions. In- 
dustrial depression might mean political revolu- 



18 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

tion. For political revolution is closely re- 
lated to food, wages, and the conditions of the 
people. And in England and Germany the 
productive capacity of the state was increas- 
ing with great rapidity. The increase in ma- 
chine-power and capital investment was in- 
creasing the output of the mills faster than it 
could be consumed at home. For the workers 
received low wages. This limited their power 
to buy. The surplus produce could only find 
a market in other lands. The output of mills 
and factories must be disposed of somehow, 
otherwise there would be industrial collapse. 
Collapse would mean distress, increased pov- 
erty, possibly revolution. It would endanger 
the banks which had extended credit to the 
great trusts and syndicates which they had 
financed. The whole economic structure of 
Europe was dependent not only on maintaining 
markets already secured, but on opening up 
new markets to absorb the increasing output 
of the mills and factories. 

Economic internationalism and social revo- 
lution were threatening organized society. 

This is why Europe was struggling for terri- 
tories, markets, trade routes, for opportunities 



THE OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW 19 

to build railways, to open mines, to sell muni- 
tions. 

Fear was yet another cause of imperialism. 
It led to rushes for slices of the earth's surface. 
Africa was carved up between England, France, 
Germany, Belgium, and Portugal. The Powers 
descended upon Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, 
and Morocco. Persia w T as divided. Germany 
laid her hands on Turkey, Asia Minor, Mesopo- 
tamia, and made economic conquests in the 
Balkan states. Mexico and the Central Ameri- 
can states were penetrated. All of the Powers 
rushed to China to participate in her dismem- 
berment. There were wars for territory, for 
economic gain. Gold and diamond syndicates 
brought on the Transvaal war. Europe was 
near war in 191 1 over the concessions and 
privileges in Morocco. Russia and Japan 
w T ent to war over Manchuria. The Balkan 
states were the prey of all the Powers. The 
United States seized the Philippines and Porto 
Rico. The whole world, with the exception of 
South America, which was protected by the 
Monroe Doctrine, was parcelled out by seizure, 
peaceful penetration, and war during the 
generation which preceded 1914. Over 100,- 



■J 



20 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

000,000 people were made subject to England, 
France, and Germany during these years. 

The old nationalistic world has ended. The 
international world has appeared. We refuse 
to recognize it. We endeavor to keep states 
within ancient boundary-lines. But that is 
impossible. The new economic forces are 
irresistible. They are stronger than political 
traditions. And they have burst the old 
geography. Our political ideas are fifty years 
behind the facts. We try to make the world 
conform to what we think it is. It will not 
conform. It cannot conform. 

This book is a study of some of these forces, 
which, like high explosives, have been confined 
by eighteenth-century diplomacy, eighteenth- 
century political ideas, and by the ignorance of 
statesmen and the press. Monopolistic inter- 
ests, trained to monopoly at home, have sought 
monopoly overseas. They have confined the 
freedom of states in every possible way. They 
have sought to constrict economic forces. But 
these forces have been stronger than statesmen. 

While these titanic economic forces lie back 
of the war and form its background they were 
not the immediate cause of the war. Economic 



THE OLD WORLD AXD THE NEW 21 

conflicts were being adjusted by diplomacy, by 
negotiation, by the recognition of the rights of 
nations to expansion. This was particularly 
true from 1912 to 1914, when England, France, 
and Russia made sincere efforts to satisfy the 
ambitions of Germany in Turkey, Asia Minor, 
and Mesopotamia. The cause of the war is 
to be found in the Prussian idea of the state 
and the ascendancy of the Junker-military 
caste. For the caste which rules Germany has 
a nationalistic psychology of its own. It is a 
survival of earlier centuries. It is an anachron- 
ism. And the military ruling caste believes in 
conquest; in the methods of earlier centuries. 
Economic expansion gave birth to the demand 
for a place in the sun; the feudal caste made 
war to secure it. 

During the last twenty years German in- 
dustry has spread itself all over the earth. 
German traders were succeeding by peaceful 
means. But the traders felt constricted by the 
fact that Germany had few colonies, no ex- 
clusive markets or raw materials, and, most 
important of all, no avenues of her own for 
contact with the outside world. And they 
registered this fact in the press, through the 



22 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Pan-German League, through clamors. Ger- 
man industry burst the old shell of nation- 
alism and the Junker class followed the tradi- 
tions of Germany, and the only ideas with 
which it was familiar, and used the mailed fist 
to secure what the big industrials wanted. 
The industrials were the proximate cause of 
the war, but the Junkers made war. They 
made war as they had in previous times on 
Poland, on Denmark, on Austria, on France. 
Not content with peaceful penetration they 
adopted Machtpolitik. In so doing Germany 
made war on the status quo of Europe which 
had been building for fifty years. By her ruth- 
less methods and disregard of the rights of na- 
tions and humanity she outraged the moral 
sense of the world. 

This is why German imperialism was a menace. 
This is how it differs from that of other Powers. 



CHAPTER II 
IMPERIALISM 

While economic internationalism has been 
breaking down natural boundaries, individual 
interests have been erecting obstacles to these 
new forces. The world is seeking freedom. 
Privilege is seeking monopoly. These forces 
are in conflict. They embroil nations, breed 
suspicions, entangle diplomacy. The world 
has become interdependent; financiers, privi- 
leged interests, certain groups of manufacturers, 
have sought to divide the world into exclusive 
possessions. Imperialism is at war with inter- 
nationalism. It is at war with democracy as 
well. 

Imperialism had its birth in surplus wealth 
seeking investment. It appeared in the greater 
Powers in the sixties and seventies. This surplus 
wealth sprang from rents, royalties, and trade 
profits. It could only be invested at home 
at low rates of interest. It began to venture 
overseas. It penetrated into Asia and India, 



24 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

into north and central Africa, into the Americas. 
It went as loans to weak and dependent coun- 
tries, to build railroads, to acquire iron ore, 
copper, oil. It penetrated into Africa for rubber, 
cocoa, ivory, gold, and diamonds. It opened 
up plantations in the Indies. And wherever 
it went it carried the Czar, the Kaiser, the 
Foreign Office with it. Absentee capitalism 
gave birth to imperialism, and imperialism is 
at war with the forces of trade, commerce, 
and the interdependence of the world. 

The forces of privilege, that seek protective 
tariffs and monopolies at home, that demand 
the same privileges overseas, and arouse an- 
tagonisms that make for war, include: 

One. The struggle for territories, posses- 
sions, and spheres of influence from which other 
and competing nations can be excluded. 

Two. The conflict of high finance, of 
bankers, investors, and concession seekers of 
all kinds, a conflict that has been going on all 
over the world during the last forty years. 

Three. The competition of the industrial 
classes, the iron and the steel manufacturers, 
the great munition firms, the cotton and woollen 
makers, the machine-tool and other industrial 



IMPERIALISM 25 

aggregations that have been merged into monop- 
olies, syndicates, and trusts in all of the in- 
dustrial countries.y 

Four. The shipping interests of the various 
countries, especially of England and Germany. 

Five. The struggle for the control of the 
seas and land routes of trade^and especially the 
Mediterranean and Bagdad Railway, and stra- 
tegic places like Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, the 
Suez and Kiel Canals, the Persian Gulf, Walfisch 
Bay, and other waterways which constitute 
the great routes of trade. 

Six. Economic penetration into weak and 
defenseless countries for the purpose of con- 
trolling their financial and industrial life by 
means of loans, preferential trading privileges, 
tariffs, and concessions for raw materials^* This 
penetration is not confined to Africa, Asia, Mex- 
ico, and Central America. Economic power 
has been sought in Russia, Italy, Greece, the 
Balkan states, South America, Turkey, and 
Asia Minor. It is promoted by the great bank- 
ing establishments which radiate out from 
London, Paris, and Berlin. They not only 
promote the trade of their own country, they 
undermine the credit institutions of less de- 



26 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

veloped countries. They are in conflict with 
the banking and exploiting institutions of 
other countries as well. 

Seven. Closely related to all of these inter- 
ests and merged with them are the munition- 
makers which promote armament. They have 
been responsible for war scares; they are closely 
related to their respective governments and the 
ruling classes of their countries. 

Eight. Imperialism is a result of these eco- 
nomic activities. The greater Powers have 
been warring for lands and possessions. Cer- 
tain territories have strategic value by reason 
of their control of the trade routes of the world, 
while Africa, the East Indies, and Mexico are 
sources of raw materials, of iron ore, copper, 
oil, rubber, lumber, cocoa, sugar, and other 
products essential to the industrial life of the 
greater Powers. 

The desire for distant lands for the most 
part tropical is not dynastic. It is economic. 
And just as the great industries have perfected 
their monopolies at home, so they have utilized 
diplomacy and political and military power 
for the creation and perfection of economic 
monopoly all over the world. 



IMPERIALISM 27 

These activities of high finance and industry 
are in conflict with the new internationalism 
described in the previous chapter. From 1880 
until the outbreak of the war almost every 
unprotected part of the globe had fallen under 
the dominion of England, France, Germany, 
and Russia. Even the United States has not ^< 
been free from imperialistic expansion. From 
1870 to 1900 the lust for overseas possessions 
added no less than 4,750,000 square miles 
and 88,000,000 people to the possessions and 
spheres of influence of Great Britain. During 
these years France has added to her domains 
over 3,500,000 square miles of territory, al- 
most all tropical, with a population of 37,- 
000,000, while Germany has brought under 
her sway at least 1,000,000 square miles of 
territory with an estimated population of 14,- 
000,000 people. Africa has been divided among 
the greater Powers. A great part of Asia has 
been partitioned into spheres of influence. 
Even the ancient empire of China is under 
the quasi-protection of the greater Powers, 
as are the islands of the Pacific, the West In- 
dies, and certain states in Central America. 
Over a billion people and the major portion 



28 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of the earth's surface is in complete or partial 
subjection to the five great Powers of the world. 
This new imperialism is economic; it is 
financial. The greater Powers have laid their 
hands upon the helpless peoples of the earth 
for the purpose of exploitation. Surplus wealth 
at home, that could only be invested at low 
rates of interest, has been seeking speculative 
returns all over the earth. High finance search- 
ing for railroads, lands, iron ore, copper, oil, 
gold, and silver, for the making of loans to 
weak states, began this new imperialism. It 
has been confined almost exclusively to the 
great industrial nations — to England, France, 
Germany, and to some extent Italy and the 
United States. During these years industry 
has expanded to colossal proportions. In al- 
most all of the greater states it has been monop- 
olized in a few hands. The foreign trade of the 
world amounted to $35,000,000,000 before the 
war. Monopolized industry resents competition 
at home; it is equally resentful of competition 
by foreign Powers abroad. And monopolized 
industry has been seeking exclusive markets 
which it could only secure through the closed 
door, preferential tariffs, and spheres of in- 



IMPERIALISM 29 

fluence. Surplus capital has also gone out 
seeking investment in subject states for the 
benefit of the privileged classes at home. Bank- 
ing, too, has become international. It, too, is 
under the control of a small class closely related 
to the government. All of these great economic 
forces are closely merged with the Foreign 
Office and diplomatic service. For diplomacy 
remains the agency of the ruling classes much 
as it was in mediaeval times. And in recent 
years diplomacy has become a trade agency of 
the classes which rule. 

Formerly territory was sought for military 
power or the satisfaction of dynastic ambitions. 
But the new imperialism is not interested in 
more soldiers or contiguous territory — it is 
economic. When peaceful penetration fails, 
the mailed fist is applied; for under the rules 
of international law the investments of the 
subjects of a great Power carry the sovereignty 
of the nation; and if property rights are in 
danger, diplomacy, battleships, and an army 
are placed at the service of the investing classes 
to bring weaker nations into subjection. This 
is the philosophy of financial imperialism. It 
is the philosophy of dollar diplomacy. It is 



30 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the twentieth-century expression of the earlier 
idea that smaller states and weaker peoples 
have no rights which society is bound to re- 
spect. This new imperialism in finance and 
trade has been ruthless — more ruthless than 
we know. The darkest pages of the fifty years 
which preceded the war are written in the 
blood and suffering of the oppressed peoples 
of the earth. 

We know but little of the wrongs committed 
all over the world by the greater Powers. We 
are familiar with the atrocities of Armenia 
because they were committed by the "un- 
speakable Turk." But what of the atrocities 
of all Africa, north as well as south? Only a 
suggestion of the crimes against the black folks 
of Africa has ever been permitted to be known. 
In the Congo a system of forced labor was 
introduced; men were worked in slave gangs; 
they were robbed of all their possessions to 
make them work. Yet the Congo was not an 
exception. In a speech from the throne in 
1888 the German Reichstag was informed 
that it was the solemn duty of the empire to 
"win the dark continent for civilization." In 
this winning of Africa to Christianity the 



IMPERIALISM 31 

Hereros in southwest Africa were slaughtered. 
Laborers were obtained in German East Africa 
under circumstances that could not be dis- 
tinguished from slavery. Doctor Rohrbach, 
one of the most distinguished publicists of 
Germany and imperial commissioner for south- 
west Africa, stated: "The Hereros have lost 
their land. The whole of the live stock of the 
Hereros has been destroyed. There are hardly 
any cattle left." Another German colonial 
expert, speaking of these people, said: "The 
Hereros must be compelled to work, and to 
work without compensation and in return for 
their food only. Forced labor for years is only 
a just punishment." 

But such methods were not employed in 
South Africa alone. The conquest of Egypt, 
of Morocco, of Tunis, of the Transvaal; the 
exploitation of Persia, and even Mexico has 
been pursued with very little regard for the 
rights of these peoples who have been reduced 
to political and industrial servitude. The 
people of Mexico lost their mines, their oil- 
wells, their richest lands; and almost the entire 
population was reduced to poverty and peonage 
in the struggle of the concessionaires of the 



32 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

greater Powers to exploit the resources of our 
neighbor republic. When they would not work 
at the wages offered their lands were taken from 
them; and the only alternative left was star- 
vation or starvation wages in the mines or on 
the plantations of foreign owners. It is only 
within the last few years that a protest has 
been raised in this country against the aggres- 
sions of American financiers, mine and planta- 
tion owners in Mexico. And we have no means 
of knowing how extensively similar exploita- 
tion is being carried on in Porto Rico, the Phil- 
ippines, Cuba, Hawaii, and Central America. 1 

1 "Whatever may be thought about individual and isolated in- 
stances, it is evident that commercial ambitions, and the conse- 
quent demand for annexation of territory, have for long enough 
in all the nations concerned been leading up to a crisis of deadly 
conflict; and the connection of this with class domination is well 
illustrated by the fact that Russia, with the change in her con- 
stitution, has immediately repudiated the desire for annexation, 
while the Socialists of Germany and the other countries repudiate 
it also." — Edward Carpenter, Towards Industrial Freedom, p. 8. 

To the same effect Mr. Georg Brandes, the distinguished Danish 
critic, says: "In olden days when nations lived by agriculture 
they went to war to gain territory, to wrest land away from their 
neighbors. Now that the nations have become industrial states 
and are in reality ruled by financial oligarchies even if they 
nominally appear to have emperors, kings or presidents, the pur- 
pose of war is no longer to conquer land or peoples but markets. 
Each nation wants a wider outlet for its products, greater invest- 
ment for its capital." — The World at War, p. 139. 



CHAPTER III 
THE HEART OF THE WAR 

The conflict of the old world and the new is as 
wide as the world. But the heart of the war was 
the Mediterranean. Here the European Pow- 
ers come into most direct collision. Here Eng- 
land, France, Germany, and Russia have been 
strengthening their outposts for a generation. 
They have been struggling for territory, for 
concessions, for privileges of all kinds. The 
archives of Europe are filled with treaties and 
conventions bearing upon this territory, while 
the chancelleries have never lost sight of the 
great trade routes from Europe to the Orient 
and the territory round about the Mediterra- 
nean Sea, which was the capital prize in the 
struggle. 

Let us visualize this neglected area. It ex- 
tends from the Straits of Gibraltar to India, and 
from Austria-Hungary to the Indian Ocean. 
Round about it are twenty states and nearly 
350,000,000 people who are dependent upon 
it for access to the outside world. 

33 



34 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

The struggle for the Mediterranean was re- 
sponsible for the Crimean War in 1853. It 
explains the conflicts over Turkey. It led to 
the occupation of Egypt in 1882, the under- 
standing with France in 1904, the Morocco in- 
cident in 191 1, the partition of Persia in 1912, 
the activities of diplomacy in the Balkans, and 
the pressure for the control of Mesopotamia 
and the Persian Gulf, which are the only miss- 
ing links in the British Empire from the Eng- 
lish Channel to India. 

British financiers have investments of great 
value in railroads, banks, and other enterprises 
in this part of the world. Over $375,000,000 
is invested in Egypt alone. Her financiers 
have large interests in Asia Minor, Mesopo- 
tamia, and Persia. But the paramount in- 
terest of Great Britain is the sea route to the 
East. This transcends all other British in- 
terests in any part of the world. For the 
Mediterranean links England with India, Aus- 
tralia, East Africa, and her Far Eastern posses- 
sions. It is the route of shipping, of which 
England controls nearly 40 per cent, of the 
world's tonnage. Even the industrial life of 
Great Britain, which employs one-half of her 



THE HEART OF THE WAR 35 

population, is dependent upon the Mediter- 
ranean remaining in friendly hands. Bis- 
marck termed the Suez Canal "the spinal 
cord" of the British Empire. 

The other Powers are also involved. Russia 
has been ambitious for the Dardanelles since 
the time of Peter the Great. She has long cast 
covetous eyes on Persia and northern Asia 
Minor, as well as on ports upon the Mediter- 
ranean and the Persian Gulf. Moreover, if 
Russia is to be an industrial state she must have 
access to the warm seas, unimpeded by any 
other Power. 

France has territorial possessions in Morocco, 
Algeria, and Tunis. She is the favored nation 
in Syria and the Balkan states. She has col- 
onies in the Far East. Her people have in- 
vested billions of dollars in the securities of 
Russia, Turkey, and the Balkans; in railroads 
and other privileges in western Asia. 

Italy controls Tripoli. She seeks control of 
the littoral lands on the Adriatic Sea and in 
Asiatic Turkey. Austria-Hungary wants an 
outlet to the sea. She desires Adriatic ports 
and Salonika. Germany is ambitious for eco- 
nomic and political power in this part of the 



36 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

world. And Germany has challenged the status 
quo. 

The Balkan states He athwart the railroad 
routes from central Europe to the Mediterra- 
nean. They are Roumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, 
and the little states of Herzegovina, Bosnia, 
and Albania. For years these states have been 
rent by wars. They have been sacrificed by 
the intrigues of the greater Powers interested in 
imperialistic or financial advantages, and par- 
ticularly in preventing or securing concessions 
or treaties which will close or open the corridors 
from Germany and Austria to the Dardanelles 
and the Mediterranean. 

Little Serbia blocked German-Austrian ad- 
vance into Turkey, Asia Minor, and Mesopo- 
tamia. She was a barrier between Mitteleu- 
ropa and the Mediterranean. With the other 
Balkan states she protects Russia, France, 
and England from attack from the north. This 
is why Serbia is so important. This is why she 
was crushed by Germany and Austria. 

Across the Bosporus from Constantinople is 
western Asia. It includes Asia Minor, Armenia, 
and the whole of the Mesopotamia region. It 
extends to the Caucasus Mountains and Russia 



THE HEART OF THE WAR 37 

on the north, and to the Persian Gulf on the 
south. Here are great stretches of land avail- 
able for the cultivation of cotton and wheat. 
Here are minerals of all kinds, lumber, and oil. 
Farther on is Persia, which touches British 
India on the east and the Persian Gulf on the 
west and south. Asia Minor alone has an area 
but little less than the area of Germany. 

Along the southern shore of the Mediterra- 
nean are Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and 
Morocco. 1 These states are scarcely more 



1 The population of the nations and dependencies about the 
Mediterranean basin and their foreign commerce, 1914, is as 
follows: 



Countries 



Population 



Foreign 
Commerce 



Egypt 

Persia 

Tunis 

Algeria 

Morocco 

Tripoli 

Bosnia and Herzegovina 

Roumania 

Serbia 

Turkey (in Europe and Asia) 

Bulgaria 

Greece 

Italy 

Ru-^ia 



11,190,000 
9,500,000 
1,870,000 
5,564,000 
4,500,000 
525,000 
1,962,000 
5,956,000 
2,911,000 

21,273,000 
4,432,000 
2,765,000 

36,120.000 



£45,816,400 
20,054,000 

9,564,500 
35,948,000 
10,873,000 

1,158,000 



49,428,000 
7,612,500 
67,472,000 
14,679,800 
11,690,800 
205,350,000 



108,568,000 
180,000,000 



£479,647,000 
206,000,000 



38 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

than names to most of us. But to the Foreign 
Offices and concession seekers they represent 
opportunities for economic gain. These back- 
ward peoples are but little given to industry. 
They have no banks or credit facilities of their 
own. They have no capitalistic class. They 
are, however, able to work. And they work 
at a very low wage. They also consume. 
They furnish a market for the mills, factories, 
and workshops of Europe. 

The states about the Mediterranean contain 
108,000,000 people in complete or partial de- 
pendence upon the greater Powers. Of these 
at least 75,000,000 are in a state of subjection. 
And the privileged classes of the greater Powers 
find it advantageous to control these states. 
They find it profitable to keep other Powers 
out. They can make loans and investments on 
their own terms. And colossal sums at high 
rates of interest have been advanced to the 
rulers of these backward countries. They can 
control the wealth which these countries pro- 
duce, and charge what they will for the products 
of their own factories. The loans and invest- 
ments of the greater Powers to Russia and the 
Mediterranean states amount to thousands of 
millions of dollars. 



THE HEART OF THE WAR 39 

The long ascendaricy of Great Britain in the 
Mediterranean, as well as the political and 
economic interests of Russia and France, has 
been challenged by the German "Drive to the 
East." German) 7 has upset the equilibrium of 
Europe. For the eastern Mediterranean is the 
most vulnerable spot of the Allied Powers. 
The economic life as well as the political affilia- 
tion of Great Britain, France, Russia, and 
Italy have been placed in peril by the Bagdad 
Railway project and German ascendancy in 
Turkey. 

German penetration into the Near East be- 
gan in the eighties. And for thirty-five years 
German diplomacy, German finance, and Ger- 
man* industrial agents have been stealthily 
burrowing into the eastern Mediterranean 
region. They have made their way into every 
country. They have built railroads in Turkey 
and Asia Minor. They have appropriated 
the banking and trade of a half-dozen states. 
With scientific thoroughness Germany has 
placed a great part of the Near East from Bu- 
kharest to Bagdad under economic and political 
vassalage to Berlin. Turkey has become a 
vassal state. Asia Minor was being networked 
with German influence. Ottoman armies are 



40 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

commanded by German officers. Turkish for- 
eign affairs were directed from Wilhelmstrasse. 
The Balkan states have been honeycombed by 
German intrigue. Economic penetration was 
fast becoming political conquest. By 1914 the 
Pan-German dream of empire was approaching 
a reality. It challenged the status quo. It 
unsettled the balance of power. It menaced 
British control of the Mediterranean basin 
from India to Gibraltar, and with it the water 
route to India, Australia, and the British pos- 
sessions in Asia and Africa. It menaced Rus- 
sia, France, and Italy as well. The entire 
structure of Europe was in danger. The 
"Drang nach Osten" was an adventure in trade, 
in commerce, in high finance, in diplomacy. 
Most important of all, it was an adventure in 
empire-building on a scale comparable to that 
of ancient Rome, with an empire in view ex- 
tending from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean, 
with a population of 200,000,000 people. Mit- 
teleuropa and the control of the Mediterranean 
was the most colossal project of political and 
economic conquest in the history of the world. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 

It was natural that Germany should be the 
last of the Powers to be interested in imperial- 
ism. The traditions of the country were those 
of a continental state. The empire only came 
into being in 1870. Even then Germany was 
almost exclusively agricultural. There were 
few large cities and only a small part of the 
people was engaged in industry. And Germany 
would have remained a continental Power but 
for her extraordinary industrial development; 
a development far more rapid than that of any 
other European state. Largely as a result of 
the constructive legislation of Bismarck she 
passed into a commanding industrial position 
in a few years' time. With the aid of science 
and a highly specialized education, stimulated 
by a series of laws providing for a banking 
system, for a moderate tariff, and a system 
of rail and water transportation that was in- 
timately co-ordinated with every need of the 
empire, her industries first captured the mar- 

41 



42 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

kets at home and then reached out for the trade 
of the world. English and American machines 
were perfected, improvements were made in 
trade processes, and German agents aided in 
every way by the government had placed goods 
bearing the mark "Made in Germany" in 
every market of the world. 

Germany became an industrial power through 
state socialism, and the most carefully planned 
trade methods developed with the aid of the 
best scientific thought of the empire. The rail- 
ways were taken over in the eighties, and 
brought to a high state of efficiency. Between 
1879 an d 1905 the Prussian railways alone in- 
creased from 4,000 to 20,000 miles in length. 
They were placed under imperial authority to 
secure unity of operation. They are operated 
for service rather than for profits. Just as the 
railroads have been mobilized for military pur- 
poses, so for thirty years they were mobilized 
for the upbuilding of industry and export trade. 
Freight rates were unified. The schedules 
were simplified. Rivers were deepened and 
canals were built from one industrial section to 
another. Prussia alone expended $250,000,- 
000 on her inland waterways. 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 43 

A general policy of protection was adopted 
with low but carefully arranged schedules of 
customs dues. The shipbuilding industry en- 
joyed free trade in raw materials and in manu- 
factured goods as well. Very low transpor- 
tation rates were accorded the shipbuilders. 
Great shipyards sprang up as if by magic, 
and German shipping grew with great rapidity. 
Soon the German merchant marine was chal- 
lenging English shipping in every port in the 
world. 

From 1882 to 1907 the number of persons 
employed in industry increased from 16,000,000 
to 22,000,000. The urban population doubled. 
In 1881 German foreign trade was but #1,500,- 
000,000. By 1902 it had increased to #2,750,- 
000,000, while during the next ten years it nearly 
doubled. By 1914 it had increased to #4,900,- 
000,000. It almost equalled the foreign trade 
of Great Britain. Shipping increased with 
similar rapidity, as did the clearance of vessels 
from German ports. In 1912 the clearance of 
vessels for foreign trade from London was 
11,172,000 tons; from Hamburg 11,933,000 
tons. Only New York exceeded the port of 
Hamburg in the clearance to foreign countries. 



44 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

This is indicative of the expansion of German 
industry and commerce during the quarter of 
a century which closed with the outbreak of the 
war. 

Capitalism in Germany in the years before 
the war had reached the explosive point. The 
urban population (living in cities of over 20,000 
population) increased from 18.4 per cent, of 
the total population in 1885 to 34.5 per cent, in 
1 910. Inventions, science, the perfection of 
machines, the increase in the productivity of 
labor created a condition of inflated production 
that threatened collapse. Collapse would in- 
volve the banks. It would involve the shipping 
interests. Quite as important it would bring 
on industrial unrest and possibly social revolu- 
tion. The consuming power of the people was 
limited by low wages. The surplus products 
could only find an outlet in foreign trade; a 
part of which was subject to more or less exclu- 
sive control by other nations. 

Closely identified with the industrial inter- 
ests is a group of banking institutions, especially 
the Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Darm- 
stadter Bank, and Diskonto Gesellschaft, known 
as the four D's, which through thousands of 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 45 

branches control the savings of the people. 
They, too, were critically involved in the in- 
dustrial situation. These banks are very im- 
perialistic. They have branches all over the 
world. They are agencies of trade promotion. 
Through these banks the industrial develop- 
ment of Germany is controlled as is the economic 
life of outside states. The munition industries 
are interlocked with them. So is the great 
electrical monopoly, as well as the iron and 
steel enterprises of western Germany. These 
banks were further interlocked through com- 
mon directors with hundreds of enterprises not 
only in Germany but in France, Italy, Russia, 
Turkey, and the Balkan states. They were 
interlaced with hundreds of other enterprises 
in South America, China, and Africa. Through 
these agencies German industry, German trade, 
and German commerce were promoted all over 
the world. 

One can hardly overstate the power and 
influence of these Grossbanken, It has been 
said that these banks with a hundred persons 
rule industrial Germany. They control the 
major enterprises of the country. They 
brought into being and dominate the policy 



46 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of the great syndicates of iron and steel, of 
coal, of electricity, of chemicals. The names 
of the directors of the Grossbanken are to be 
found interlocked with industry, trade, and 
shipping. They were the driving forces in the 
conquest of the world through finance and ex- 
port trade. For only through increasing ex- 
ports could German enterprise maintain itself 
and prevent an industrial depression at home. 
And the great industrials viewed the world 
as the feudal classes viewed Germany. They 
sought economic conquest while the militaristic 
classes sought to maintain their feudal power at 
home. One of the leading personalities of this 
industrial feudalism was Doctor Karl Helfferich, 
Director of the Deutsche Bank and recently 
imperial minister of finance. He was one of 
the promoters of the Bagdad Railway. It is 
he who directed the domestic finance of the 
empire and its industrial and imperialistic oper- 
ations overseas. 

With production increasing at an unprece- 
dented rate, with the capacity of the German 
people to consume limited by low wages, a 
trade outlet had to be found to avoid collapse. 
It might be industrial. It might be social. If 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 47 

continued long enough it might lead to revolu- 
tion. All classes were affected by these con- 
ditions. Even the Socialists in the Reichstag 
supported colonial expansion. 

Moreover, this was a period of the new eco- 
nomic imperialism. There was a mania for 
territorial possessions. It was the period of 
conquest in the interest of finance and trade. 
All of the nations of Europe were annexing 
territory in every portion of the globe. But the 
best of the earth's surface was already gone. 
Only Turkey, western Asia, and portions of 
Africa remained. 

These were also years of financial imperialism. 
Surplus wealth was appearing in the older 
countries. Interest rates at home were falling. 
The returns from foreign loans and concessions 
in undeveloped portions of the earth were at- 
tracting the attention of financiers. Branch 
banks were established all over the world. 
These banks saw opportunities for the build- 
ing of railroads, for mines, for plantations, for 
exploitation of all kinds. The banks enlisted 
the aid of their Foreign Offices; they made use 
of their diplomatic agents in urging the claims 
of the investors and munition makers of their 



48 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

respective countries. Loans to the extent of 
billions were made during these years. 1 The 
commissions, discounts, profits from under- 
writings as well as the interest rates were 
much higher than at home. In many instances 
the loans spelled bankruptcy to the borrowing 
states, which passed under the control of the 
creditor Powers through the intervention of 
the governments of the lending countries. 

This was the attitude of the industrial and 
financial classes of Europe in the years before 
the war. It was a period like that of the gold 
rush to California and Alaska. The old type 
of colonization ended with the settlement of 
America, Australia, and Cape Colony. The 
new era of economic imperialism began with the 
appearance of surplus wealth at home, the rise 
of monopoly in industry, the concentration of 
banking, and the belief of the capitalistic 
classes that markets and raw materials must 
be found in the outside world and that they 
must be under the exclusive political control 
of the European countries in order to exclude 
other nations from the field. 

1 The total foreign investments of England, France, and Ger- 
many in 1914 amounted to #35,000,000,000. 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 49 

The German industrial classes demanded ex- 
clusive markets. German}' was also in need of 
raw materials. She had to go to English col- 
onies and the United States for cotton. She 
had little copper and oil. Her iron-ore de- 
posits in Lorraine were threatened with exhaus- 
tion. 1 She needed rubber, materials for her 
dyes, many minerals, and also food for her 
rapidly growing population. These were only 
to be had in other countries. 

The politics of Germany were also chang- 
ing. She ceased to be feudal, landed, agrarian. 
Germany was passing through an evolution like 
that which took place in Great Britain from 1830 
to 1850, when the old Conservative party was 
challenged b}' the Liberal party of Cobden, 
Bright, and Gladstone, which represented the 
new industrial and commercial classes. 2 The 
imperial constitution of Germany, imposed 
upon the German states by Bismarck at the 
close of the Franco-Prussian War, was designed 

1 German claims in Morocco were for iron ore in the Sus 
province, while the Shantung Peninsula territory in China, taken 
as indemnity, was desired primarily for its iron-ore deposits and 
the harbor of Kiaoutchau. 

1 The same evolution took place in the United States follow- 
ing the Civil War. 



50 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

to enthrone the old aristocracy, the King of 
Prussia, and the Junker class. The peasant, 
the worker, even the business classes were 
frankly excluded from political power. They 
enjoyed the ballot, it is true, and they could 
and do find places in the Reichstag. But they 
do not control the politics of the empire. 

But the new class, the bourgeoisie, was fast 
rising to power. Not so much by law as by its 
commanding importance in the life of the state. 
Its home is in western Germany in the Rhine- 
Westphalia region. Essen, Frankfort, Diissel- 
dorf, Duisburg, Cologne, Hamburg, and Bremen 
are the centres of its influence, although the 
great banking-houses of Berlin are closely iden- 
tified with it. 

If we could analyze the invisible government 
of Germany, we should possibly find that the 
capitalist-financial class is the strongest class 
in the empire. It has not the social distinction 
enjoyed by the capitalists in England or the 
United States. It is still discriminated against 
by the landed aristocracy and the military 
classes. It is inadequately represented in the 
Reichstag and the Prussian Parliament. And 
it has no voice whatever in the Bundesrat. 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 51 

It has a party of its own, the National Liberal, 
and it co-operates with the Conservative or 
Junker party in the government. Our text-book 
portrayals of Germany contain little reference 
to this group. It has come into existence since 
1 871 when the present constitution was adopted. 
That is why our currently accepted opinions of 
Germany neglect its power. But that is a fault 
of all text-books on government. They con- 
tain no suggestion that government is economic 
rather than political, and that even constitu- 
tions will not stand in the way of the ascen- 
dancy of the class that is economically the 
most powerful. And in Germany the iron and 
the steel interests, the munition-making con- 
cerns, the shipowners, the great banks, the trusts, 
and commercial classes, have become very 
powerful, just as have the iron and steel and 
financial interests in our own country. They 
have a press of their own. It is the most 
jingoistic in Germany. With the Junkers the 
commercial, industrial, and financial classes 
are the government in every sense of the word. 
Whereas Bismarck desired a powerful con- 
tinental state the Kaiser reflected the new de- 
mand for industrial power and colonial expan- 



•/ 



52 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

sion. The Junkers are interested in domestic 
politics and the control of continental Europe. 
The industrials, on the other hand, are desirous 
of markets for the surplus products of their 
mills and factories, for raw materials, for iron 
ore, copper, cotton, wheat, and a secure means 
of communication with the outside world. 
The industrials are the real imperialists. From 
them came the demand for colonies, for posses- 
sions, and especially for the Bagdad Railway, 
a German land route to the Mediterranean 
and the Far East, unmenaced by British con- 
trol of the seas. 

Finally Bismarck, who had been indifferent 
to colonial expansion, was retired by the Kaiser 
on his accession to the throne. Although Bis- 
marck represented the old feudal order, his 
far-seeing legislation had laid the foundations 
for German industrial achievements. William 
II identified himself with the big industrial 
interests. The economic expansion of Germany 
began with his ascension to the throne in 1888. 

In the closing decade of the last century 
Germany abandoned her continental traditions 
and began to reach out for a place in the sun. 
From 1884 to 1890 nearly 1,000,000 square 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 53 

miles of territory, for the most part tropical, 
with an estimated population of 14,000,000 
people was brought under German rule. l 
With the parliamentary elections of 1899, 
which turned largely on the question of col- 
onies, the empire committed itself to a policy 
of expansion and from this time on German 
agents and German traders were actively 
planting German claims wherever an opening 
offered. 

The foreign policies of Germany changed 
with the retirement of Bismarck. The under- 
standing with Russia was permitted to lapse. 
This freed the hands of Germany so far as the 
Near-Eastern question was concerned, while 
the disaffection between Turkey and Great 
Britain left the Sultan a receptive candidate to 
German advances, especially as the tenure of 
Turkey on European soil was none too secure. 
Great Britain had long been the guardian of 
Turkey in Europe. But the occupation of 
Egypt, in 1882, as a measure of protection to the 

1 These colonies are almost exclusively tropical. They have 
been a heavy financial burden and a disappointment to the 
trading classes. Exports to these colonies have been almost 
negligible. German colonial experience has been a recognized 
failure from every point of view. 



54 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Suez Canal and British investors alienated the 
Porte. For Egypt was under the suzerainty 
of Turkey, and the Sultan had been intrusted 
with the duty of maintaining order in the 
country. The bombardment of Alexandria 
impaired British influence at Constantinople. 
It also marks the beginning of a new alignment 
of Powers, which ultimately resulted in the alli- 
ance between England, France, and Russia, and 
the throwing of Turkey into the arms of Ger- 
many. 

None of these considerations, however, would 
have induced Germany to abandon her conti- 
nental policy had it not been for the rapid 
growth of German wealth, the belief that out- 
side markets should be secured before it was 
too late and the realization that Turkey and 
western Asia were almost the only territories 
not already under the dominion of the other 
Powers. 

Industrialism in Germany had reached its 
logical conclusion. Monopoly at home, the 
rise of the industrial classes to political power, 
the struggle for exclusive possessions and trad- 
ing privileges, led to war. The battle-axe was 
substituted for competition. Not content with 



BIRTH OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 55 

her rapid industrial progress, Germany deter- 
mined to make secure what she had gotten and 
to open up the way for even greater achieve- 
ments by the exercise of the mailed fist. Mili- 
tarism, developed as a means of continental 
power, was utilized as an agency of economic 
imperialism. The Junkers, merged with the 
big industrial classes and trained to believe only 
in Machtpolitik, lent their agencies of power to 
the bankers, munition-makers, iron and steel 
interests, the monopolies and trusts, for the 
conquest of Mitteleuropa and of the Mediterra- 
nean, western Asia, and the Far East as well. 

This was the background of German penetra- 
tion into Turkey and Asia, and the desire for 
control of a highway from Hamburg to the Per- 
sian Gulf. Great Britain controlled the seas. 
German}' planned to control transportation 
by land. The Bagdad Railway was an agency 
of empire-building. 



CHAPTER V 

ECONOMIC PENETRATION INTO 
TURKEY 

For twenty-five years the mind of Germany 
has been directed toward imperialism. A con- 
tinuous nation-wide propaganda has been car- 
ried on by the Pan-German societies and the 
press. The Navy League, founded in 1895 for 
the purpose of promoting a great navy, in 
which Krupp was one of the prime movers, 
grew to 600,000 members in two years' time. 
It enrolled more than a million persons in 1910. 
The demand for expansion was shared in by all 
classes. In recent years it approached a mania. 
The commercial achievements of Germany had 
intoxicated the nation. The big industrial 
groups, closely interrelated with the great 
banks, became only less arrogant than the old 
Junker aristocracy. They insisted that nothing 
should be permitted to stand in the way of the 
expansion of Germany, and that no nation, by 
act or threat, should check the growth of Ger- 
man trade. 

56 



PEXETRATION INTO TURKEY 57 

But, as stated before, the world had already 
been appropriated. 1 The only territories out- 
side of the spheres of influence of the other 
Powers were beyond Austria-Hungary, in the 
Balkan Peninsula, in Turkey and in western 
Asia, and even here England, France, and 
Russia had claims. The Balkan states con- 
tain 18,000,000 people. In Turkey there are 
20,000,000 more. The people of these states, 
though hard-working, have but few mills and 
factories. They are but little given to in- 
dustry. They would furnish a market for the 
workers of Germany. Asiatic Turkey contains 
great stretches of land suitable for the cultiva- 
tion of wheat, cotton, and raw materials badly 
needed by German mills. There is iron ore, 
coal, and timber. The land between the 
Tigris and the Euphrates needs only irrigation 
to bring it back to its former fertility. For 
centuries Mesopotamia was so rich and popu- 
lous that it excited the cupidity of surrounding 

1 It is to be remembered that trade with peoples subject to 
the greater Powers is not open to the world on equal terms. The 
closed door is applied. There are preferential tariffs and exclusive 
privileges. Were the whole of the backward world open to equal 
trade, the struggle for exclusive possessions would lose what- 
ever justification it may have had. 



58 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

nations. In the north there is sufficient rain 
for cultivation without irrigation. A large 
part of this territory had been reduced to a 
desert waste only because the Turkish Govern- 
ment has given no protection against the tribes 
of brigands. In the seventh century A. D., 
the Tigris-Euphrates Valley supported a popu- 
lation of probably 5,000,000 people, where to- 
day less than one-third of that number live 
as nomads. A British report on the subject, 
in 191 1, stated that the land within the Tigris- 
Euphrates delta containing 12,500,000 acres of 
land could be easily reclaimed, and might be 
made to produce great quantities of crops. All 
that is needed is transportation, and irrigation 
in those sections that are in need of water. 
And irrigation-works are of comparatively easy 
construction. With this accomplished, wheat, 
cotton, rice, dates, and many other semitropical 
crops could be produced in great abundance 
as they were in ancient times. Under proper 
cultivation enough wheat and cotton can be 
raised to free Germany from dependence on 
England and the United States. 

Around the eastern shores of the Mediterra- 
nean are harbors to be developed. The Eu- 



PEXETRATIOX IXTO TURKEY 59 

phrates and Tigris offer opportunities for river- 
traffic like the Rhine. There is timber to be 
gathered from the mountainsides. Hundreds 
of millions of dollars could be profitably ex- 
pended in these development projects — proj- 
ects estimated to yield immense returns to the 
investors. In a sense, Asia Minor and Mesopo- 
tamia may be likened to the prairies of America 
to the west of the Mississippi. They wait on 
security, capital, and labor to make this region 
very productive. In time it might become a 
prosperous centre of the world, as it was in the 
time of Herodotus. "If one can speak of 
boundless prospects a^^where," says Prince 
von Biilow, "it is in Mesopotamia." ! 

Along with the trade opportunities and 
development projects, the Bagdad Railway 
would put Germany in a position of strategic 
advantage in the trade of the Far East. Her 
merchants could place their goods in Oriental 
markets in much less time than British ships 
could make the journey. The Bagdad Railway 
would be an express service to the east coast 
of Africa, to Asia, to India, and Australia as 
well. Moreover, the business of exchanging 

1 Imperial Germany, p. 96. 



60 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

and distributing the wealth of southern Europe, 
Asia, and Africa would be transferred, in part 
at least, from England to Germany and Con- 
stantinople. With harbors and adequate trans- 
portation the centre of European-Asiatic finance 
and exchange might in time be shifted from 
London to Berlin. For the Mediterranean is 
the natural clearing-house of three continents. 
Here the trade of the Eastern world should be 
carried on. With a free port like that of Ham- 
burg or Bremen established at Constantinople 
working in co-operation with the Berlin-Bag- 
dad Railway this port of the Eastern world 
would be converted into a great trading and 
commercial centre as it was in mediaeval times. 
The capture of trade and finance was one of 
the objects of German activity. It was one of 
the dangers to the economic life of Great Britain 
as well. 

It was such possibilities as these that com- 
mitted the industrial and financial classes of 
Germany to the drive to the East and a Teutonic 
empire extending from Berlin to the Indian 
Ocean. Here were opportunities for railroad- 
building, mining, works of internal improve- 
ment, the development of irrigation projects, 



PENETRATION INTO TURKEY 61 

harbors, terminals, and warehouses. Here was 
a great hinterland, an empire like India to be 
exploited, to be financed, to provide a market 
for generations to come for the surplus wealth 
of Germany. Here were raw materials for her 
mills and factories. With such a market the 
population of Germany could increase with 
safety to 100,000,000 people, while her educated 
and commercial classes would find an outlet 
now open to them only in distant countries, 
where identification with the fatherland is soon 
lost. Here, too, close at home, was an op- 
portunity for emigration. Here were fields 
for that kind of venture that the youth of 
Great Britain finds in every portion of the 
globe. 

The German people generally were committed 
to the drive to the Orient. Even the working 
classes accepted it. The Germans as a people 
believe in their right to expand, to grow, to 
enjoy whatever gains and advantages accrue 
from colonial possessions. And Turkey and 
the Near East is the back door of the German 
Empire. Moreover, it was no man's land. 
It had not yet been appropriated. It was an 
opportunity like that of Great Britain in 



62 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

India, Egypt, and South Africa, like that of 
France in Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. 

In this sense, the "Drang nach Osten" has 
the sanction of the German people. They were 
probably more interested in the validation of 
claims in this part of the world than in annex- 
ations in Belgium, France, or continental 
Europe. 

In 1886 Doctor Aloys Sprenger published a 
pamphlet entitled "Babylonia," which he de- 
scribed as "the richest country of the past and 
the most remarkable field of colonization of the 
present day. Of all lands of the world there is 
not one more inviting for colonization than 
Syria or Assyria. In that country there are 
no virgin forests to be cleared away, no natural 
difficulties to be conquered, but it is only neces- 
sary to scratch the earth, to sow, and to gather 
the harvest. The East is the only territory in 
the world which has not yet been swallowed up 
by a great Power. It is, moreover, the finest 
field for colonization. If Germany does not 
miss the Cossacks' opportunity and seizes it 
before they advance from their side, she will 
have acquired the best portion in the partition 
of the world." 



PENETRATION IX TO TURKEY 63 

About the same time another pamphlet ap- 
peared entitled "Asia Minor," by Doctor 
Kaerger, in which he urged the colonization of 
Asia Minor and demanded the immediate 
conclusion of a treaty between Germany and 
Turkey by which the Porte should be guaran- 
teed against all aggression in return for con- 
cessions which would facilitate the directing of 
German emigration toward the fertile regions of 
Turkey, and the establishment, later, of a 
customs union between the two countries. 
"To create colonies and German culture in 
Turkey," wrote Kaerger, "is a plan which, 
without taking into consideration its political 
or commercial consequences, is of special im- 
portance for Pan-Germanism. Because of the 
situation of this territory not only should the 
German Empire but also the whole of the Ger- 
man people contribute to this task." * 

The Alldeutsch Blatter, one of the chief of 
the Pan-German organs, urged in 1895: "Ger- 
man interests demand that Turkey in Asia, at 
least, should be placed under German protection. 
The most advantageous step for us would be 
the acquisition of Mesopotamia and Syria and 

1 Alldeutsch Blatter, 1895, p. 224. 



64 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the obtaining of a protectorate over Asia 
Minor. A sultanate should be formed in the 
countries situated in the German sphere of 
influence, with a guarantee of the most com- 
plete autonomy for its inhabitants." 

Mesopotamia, another writer said, should 
become "Germany's India." 



CHAPTER VI 
BERLIN TO BAGDAD 

The railway is the modern agency of eco- 
nomic conquest. America was laced into a na- 
tion in the years which followed the Civil War 
by the railroads. Cecil Rhodes planned the 
Cape to Cairo Railway as a means of conquest 
of eastern Africa. China has fallen under the 
control of the various Powers by concessions 
for railroads. England, France, and Russia 
were building railroads in Turkey, Asia Minor, 
and Persia for a generation before Germany 
developed the Berlin-Bagdad project. 

The Bagdad Railway as projected was to 
be an agency of economic conquest. It would 
serve a variety of purposes among which were 
the following: 

One. It was a "Bridge from Hamburg to 
the Orient/' uniting the whole of central 
Europe with the Balkan states and the Otto- 
man Empire. It opened up a great territory 
to German industry. 

6s 



66 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Two. The railway, with its connecting 
railroads, rivers, and canals in Austria and 
Germany, would divert the trade, the commerce, 
the exchanging of goods and the banking in- 
cident to such exchanging into German hands. 
It would reopen the mediaeval trade routes 
from India to the North Sea. 

Three. It gave Germany a highway of her 
own to the outside world, unmenaced by any 
other Power, and free from British control 
of the North Sea, Gibraltar, and the Suez 
Canal. 

The industrial position of Germany and her 
desire for a highway of her own to the outside 
world has been described by Mr. Evans Lewin, 
an Englishman, in a recently published book on 
the Bagdad Railway. He shows how the policy 
of expansion toward the East was dictated by 
the impossibility of free western expansion so 
long as Great Britain held a dominating posi- 
tion on the sea. The whole of Germany's sea 
commerce, he says, comes out of the small tri- 
angle, of which Heligoland forms the centre, 
or through the narrow waters between Den- 
mark and Norway, which, as has been seen 
during the present war, can be blocked by the 



BERLIN TO BAGDAD 67 

British fleet. Ninety-five per cent, of this 
traffic passes through the English Channel, 
whilst even the northern passage, 200 miles 
broad, between the Orkney Islands and Nor- 
way can be successfully held by British sea 
power. Even should these outlets be passed, the 
Mediterranean can be blocked at Gibraltar, 
and only at the Dardanelles and the Bosporus 
does British naval power cease. The Bagdad 
Railway was to become the avenue of German 
commerce. It was the "strategic key to Ger- 
man schemes of aggression against the mari- 
time powers of western Europe." 1 

Mr. Lewin quotes Doctor Gerhardt Schott, a 
well-known German author, who says: 

"The geographical importance of these straits 
[Dardanelles and Bosporus] to Germany con- 
sists not only in their quality as a fortified high- 
way, but also in the fact that they are a joint 
bridge-head in the great transcontinental world- 
traffic route of the future, Berlin-Vienna-Con- 
stantinople-Bagdad-Persian Gulf-Indian Ocean, 
a route independent of Great Britain and con- 
trolled by the Central Powers. Here is our 
future. Here even in time of war we shall have 
a way open to the important oceans of the 

1 German Road to the East, Evans Lcwin, p. 44. 



68 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

world. Its maintenance is a question of life 
for the Central Powers." 1 

The same necessity is expressed by other 
German writers. Professor Haller, in a book 
entitled Germany and the East, expressed the 
demand of Germany for complete industrial 
and commercial freedom. He says: 

"Germany needs, like every other land 
which desires to live in freedom and indepen- 
dence, access to the sea. She had that in the 
north so long as Germany and Britanny were 
at peace, but lost it when the latter became her 
enemy, and placed a huge padlock on the door 
of the German house by blockading the North 
Sea. Hence, unless we wish to die a death of 
economic suffocation, nothing remains but to 
force our way through in the opposite direction 
— a route already indicated by the course of 
our greatest natural thoroughfare, the Dan- 
ube. . . ." 2 

The Bagdad Railway was to be the German 
equivalent of command of the seas. It was to 
be the agency of economic penetration to the 
East. It would open up southern Europe, 
western Asia, and the Far East to German in- 

1 Idem. 

% Germany and the East, Professor Haller, Tubingen, 191 5. 



BERLIN TO BAGDAD 69 

dustry, kultur, and military power. It would 
link this whole territory from Hamburg to 
Persia into a single world state. The rail- 
road was the pioneer of economic penetration 
and of political conquest as well. 

This project has been the subject of wide 
discussion since the outbreak of the war. 
One German writer has described the purpose 
of the Bagdad Railway as follows: 

"The Bagdad Railway," he says, "will pro- 
duce economic, political and cultural results, 
the extent of which cannot now be imagined. 
In a very short time direct communication by 
rail will be established between Constantinople 
and Bagdad; while during the next generation 
towns and villages will spring up along the lines, 
and along the lesser railways which will be built 
to complete the network. These will provide 
for the agricultural and industrial development 
of that ancient city of culture to the mutual 
profit of Turkey and Germany. . . . 

"The sword had to decide the fate of the 
Near East, and the decision has fallen, unless 
unforeseen events intervene. Germany will 
not be limited to the sphere of influence formerly 
allotted to her, but in future she will devote her 
energies to Armenia, Syria, and Mesopotamia 
in the interests of German capitalists and mer- 
chants. In this manner the way will be kept 
open which the war indicated, and which, to- 



70 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

gether with our Allies, we have fought for and 
won — the way that leads from Berlin via 
Vienna-Sofia- Constantinople- Bagdad to the 
Persian Gulf and has become the vital nerve in 
our Economic life and our policy." 1 

1 Von Hans Rohde, Deutschland in Forderasien, Berlin, 19 16. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CONCESSIONS 

German promoters had been active in Turkey 
in the seventies and eighties when Baron Hirsch 
and agents of the German banks secured con- 
cessions for railroads in western Asia. The 
first railway was completed in 1873. Other 
lines were planned in Anatolia about the same 
time. Engineers and surveyors, accompanied 
by military officers, were studying Asia Minor 
with that thoroughness that characterizes Ger- 
man methods. German agents also promoted 
trade connections in this part of the world. 
The bankers and business men urged Turkey 
on the attention of the Kaiser, who made a 
visit to Constantinople in 1889. This marked 
the beginning of the rapprochement between 
the two Powers, a rapprochement made easy by 
the strained relations between Turkey and 
England and the desire on the part of the Sul- 
tan to find a new protector to give support to 
his tottering empire on European soil. And 

71 



72 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Germany was a Power whose imperialistic de- 
signs were as yet unknown. 

Turkey was desirous of developing her 
Asiatic possessions. She wanted to protect 
her territory from Russia and Great Britain, 
one ambitious for the Dardanelles and Armenia, 
the other for the Mesopotamia region. As 
Great Britain and France controlled the Medi- 
terranean, this was only possible by railroad 
connections. 

Unfortunately for the Allied Powers, as it 
afterward developed, they had discouraged the 
development of Turkey. They had kept her 
in economic subjection. There was danger 
that she might become too powerful. A strong 
Turkey might interfere with Russian plans for 
Constantinople. It might interfere with the 
British Protectorate over the Sublime Porte. 
For Great Britain had assumed the guardian- 
ship of Turkey as a means of protection against 
Russian advance to the East. Moreover, the 
concession seekers of the various countries de- 
sired to develop Turkey themselves. They 
wanted to build the railroads, to own the banks, 
to operate the mines. France also had interests. 
She was the favored country in Turkey and the 



THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CONCESSIONS 73 

Balkans. She has banking and railroad con- 
cessions in Syria and Asia Minor. Most of the 
public loans were negotiated in Paris. Great 
Britain had plans under consideration for the 
building of a railroad from the eastern end of 
the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. 1 The 
project fell into abeyance with the acquisition 
of control of the Suez Canal in 1875. There- 
after British shipping interests opposed the 
railroad project, as it would compete with their 
earnings, just as the Pacific railroads opposed 
the building of the Panama Canal because it 
would cut into their monopoly of the carrying 
trade to the Pacific coast. 

The Kaiser made a second dramatic visit to 
Constantinople and Palestine in 1898, when 
he declared himself to be the eternal friend 
and protector of the Sublime Porte. On his 
visit to Damascus he said: "Let his Maj- 
esty the Sultan, as well as the three hundred 
millions of Mohammedans who venerate him as 
their Caliph, be assured that the German Em- 
peroi will always remain their friend." This 
visit was commemorated by concessions for 
the building of railroads in Asia Minor, al- 

1 See Chapter VIII. 



74 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

though the final treaties were not made until 
five years later. The concessions were not 
made to Germany directly, but to the Deutsche 
Bank and interests identified with the bank. 
This marked the beginning of a complete under- 
standing between the two countries, which has 
been assiduously cultivated by the most bril- 
liant diplomatic representatives of the Kaiser 
ever since. 

Haidar Pasha in Asia Minor is the starting- 
point of the Bagdad Railway. It lies opposite 
Constantinople on the other side of the Bos- 
porus. From here the railroad extends east- 
ward through Anatolia, keeping well to the 
south in order to satisfy the protests of Russia 
that it should not pass too near her territory. 
It passed through Konia and Adana, thence 
over and through the Taurus Mountains to 
Aleppo. The main line continued eastward 
through Kurdistan to Nineveh and down the 
Tigris River valley to Bagdad. From Bagdad 
the line was to continue through Babylon and 
Kerbela to Basra. The final section was from 
Basra to Koweit, which was to be the southern 
terminus on the Persian Gulf. Koweit was the 
outlet to the seas. It was the gateway to the 



THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CONCESSIONS 75 

Far East. It was the coveted prize, for it not 
only opened up the Orient to German trade, it 
was a menace to the British Empire and her 
Far Eastern possessions as well. The length 
of the main line of the railroad grant was 
1,600 miles. 

There were concessions for branch lines, 
which brought the total projected mileage to 
3,000. One branch was to run northward from 
Aleppo to Urfa and another from Bagdad to 
Khanekin on the Persian frontier. The latter 
was also strategic. It threatened Russian and 
British interests in Persia. 1 One of the most 
important branches connected the main line 
with the port of Alexandretta at the north- 
eastern corner of the Mediterranean just north 
of Cyprus, a British possession. The railroad 
grant carried with it a concession to construct 
a harbor with docks and other accommodations. 
Alexandretta was to become a German port. 
It was of strategic importance. It commanded 
the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the 
Island of Cyprus. Another connection of the 
main line started near the northeastern corner 

1 Persia was under Russian and British control. The country 
was divided into spheres of influence in 1912. 



76 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of the Mediterranean at Aleppo and extended 
south through Syria and Palestine by way of 
Damascus. It passed through fertile lands 
and ended on the edge of the desert, east of 
Port Said, the northern entrance of the Suez 
Canal. There were harbor connections on the 
Mediterranean at Tripoli, Beirut, Haita, and 
Jaffa. As the road progressed new conventions 
were drawn up and changes were made in the 
terms to meet the demands of the financiers. 

The connections with the harbors on the 
Mediterranean and especially the line through 
Syria and Palestine were of great importance, as 
an examination of the map will show. They 
had great strategic value. They menaced 
British control of the Mediterranean. Once 
developed, the harbors would provide German 
naval bases just north of the Suez Canal and 
Alexandria at Beirut, Haita, and Jaffa. They 
also checked Russian advance to the Mediter- 
ranean through Asia Minor and threatened 
French influence in Syria, where she had long 
been recognized as predominant. 

Work on the Bagdad Railway was delayed 
by diplomatic controversies with the other 
Powers, by financial and engineering difficulties. 



THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CONCESSIONS 77 

For German}* had to secure capital from other 
countries. The road had been substantially 
completed from Haidar Pasha on the Bosporus 
to the foothills of the Taurus Mountains by 
1904. The tunnels through the mountains 
presented great difficulties and are a wonderful 
engineering achievement. By 191 5 work on 
all the sections under construction prior to the 
war were completed. Two sections between 
Aleppo and Bagdad were in operation in that 
year, and it was expected that the total mileage 
from Haidar Pasha to Bagdad, 1,117 rniles, 
would be in use by 1917. 

Along with the railroad grants were valuable 
concessions of other kinds, the purpose of which 
was to free Germany from dependence on out- 
side sources of supply. Germany cannot ade- 
quately feed herself. She buys her cotton from 
India, Egypt, and America. She needs oil, 
iron ore, and timber. The German idea of the 
state is that it should produce everything es- 
sential to its life. Wheat and cotton, iron and 
oil are her primary necessities 

The concession for the railroad carried with 
it grants in perpetuity for a tract of land 12.4 
miles wide on either side of the railway extend- 



78 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

ing for a distance of 1,400 miles. It contained 
18,600 square miles of territory. The grant 
included the right of cultivation and of mining, 
as well as to the exclusive use of water-power 
developed by the rivers. Mesopotamia, through 
which the line runs, has valuable bituminous 
coal and oil fields, while the branch lines to 
the Persian border run close to the oil-fields 
of that country, which are under British and 
Russian control. 

Here was a source of raw materials badly 
needed by Germany. And the agents and 
diplomats of all the European Powers are 
analyzing the earth's surface from one pole to 
the other in their hunt for such resources as 
well as for rubber, copper, and other raw ma- 
terials which have become of such value to 
modern industry. 

The Anatolian Railway Corporation, a Ger- 
man company, secured the right to irrigate 
and bring under cultivation 132,500 acres of 
land in the centre of Asia Minor. The same 
company was granted permission to build har- 
bors and quays at Bagdad, Alexandretta, and 
Basra, to establish steamship services on the 
Tigris and Euphrates, and to develop the tim- 



THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CONCESSIONS 79 

ber industry in the neighboring forests. The 
right to operate stores was also granted. 

The Turkish Government stood back of 
these grants and guaranteed the interest and 
operating costs of the railway up to #7,000,000 
a year 1 If the operating costs were not earned 
by the railway, and as a great part of the rail- 
way was built for military reasons and would 
not be profitable in years, the necessary in- 
come would have to be paid from taxes. Tur- 
key assumed the losses and in so doing placed 
herself under the same kind of dependence on 
Germany as did Egypt on Great Britain and 
Tunis and Morocco on France. Financial de- 
pendency usually ripens into political depen- 
dency. That was the expectation of the other 
Powers, and probably of Germany as well. In 
other words, if the guarantee of interest on the 
railway loans was not paid, Germany had a 
right to interfere with the finances and internal 
administration of the country. This is one of the 
unwritten conditions of financial imperialism. 
It almost invariably leads to political dominion. 

1 The annual guarantee of the Turkish Government to the 
Bagdad Railway amounted to $3,500 per kilometre, of which 
$2,400 was for construction and $1,100 was for the working 
of the road when opened. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ORIENTAL RAILWAY AND THE 
ROYAL ROAD TO THE ORIENT 

The Bagdad Railway route was not dis- 
covered by German engineers. It is the oldest 
trade route of the world. It was the "Royal 
Road" from India to Europe. The ancient 
kingdoms of Persia, Babylonia, Assyria, Parthia, 
and Media were enriched by Oriental trade 
much as is England to-day. 

This "Royal Road" of the ancient and 
mediaeval world is a natural highway between 
Asia and Europe. It was the only avenue from 
the Orient prior to the development of naviga- 
tion. Into Mesopotamia the mountain ranges 
of Persia and Asia Minor open their gateways. 
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers intersect the 
Mesopotamia valleys. They are navigable to 
the Persian Gulf. On the north is Asia Minor, 
a region as large as France, bounded on the 
south by the Taurus and Armanus Mountains, 

which open to the plains below through the 

80 



TEE ORIENTAL RAILWAY 81 

Cilician gates. These gates guard the high- 
way to Constantinople and Europe, as they do 
the valleys of Mesopotamia from incursions 
from the north. 

Through these mountain passes the trade and 
commerce of Asia found its way to Europe for 
thousands of years. This, too, was the great 
battle-ground of antiquity. It was the prize 
of countless wars. The greatest events of 
ancient and mediaeval history centre about this 
region. Even the Crusades were primarily 
for the control of these strategic routes of the 
East, which must be held in European hands 
to prevent the Christian Church from being 
broken asunder by the Ottoman hordes. 

For thousands of years rulers have coveted 
Mesopotamia and built their empires about its 
rivers because of the fertility of the country 
and the wealth which came from the trade with 
the East. The "road" went overland from 
India through Persia to Mesopotamia. It 
came up from the Persian Gulf. It followed 
the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the north. 
It passed through Babylon and Bagdad. It 
crossed over Asia Minor to Constantinople. 
It touched the cities of Syria and Palestine. 



82 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

It crossed the deserts to Egypt. The trade of 
the Orient made Mesopotamia the centre of 
the ancient and mediaeval world much as it has 
made London the centre of the world to-day. 

With the rise of Rome civilization shifted 
from Mesopotamia to the West. But trade 
still followed the old channels. Roman legions 
controlled the land routes in the East, and 
Roman galleys policed the waterways of the 
West. Rome levied tribute upon the Orient. 
Her proconsuls brought back slaves and Orien- 
tal luxuries from the Indies. For centuries 
Rome was mistress of the Mediterranean and 
of the "Royal Road" from India and Persia. 

In the sixth and seventh centuries A. D. the 
barbarians swarmed over Italy from the north. 
The old civilization of Rome was eclipsed. 
These were the Dark Ages. The trade of the 
East and the wealth which came with it was 
deposited at Constantinople. Then the Re- 
naissance came. The Italian cities rose to 
power. Trade with the Orient revived. Bank- 
ing developed. Italian traders met in the 
cities of Asia Minor, Syria, and at Constan- 
tinople. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, 
and fifteenth centuries Venice, Genoa, Florence, 



TEE ORIENTAL RAILWAY 83 

Padua, were rich and powerful city states. 
Their princes were traders. They fought for 
power on land and on sea. The wealth of Italy 
again came from Oriental trade. The cities 
grew in splendor. They controlled eastern 
colonies. They commanded the Mediterra- 
nean and warred for its trade as had the con- 
querors of ancient times. 

The Renaissance penetrated to Europe, espe- 
cially to France and South Germany, from 
Vienna to the Netherlands. Handicrafts ap- 
peared. Industry developed. Towns sprang 
up about the castles of the barons and the 
cathedrals. This was the period of the guild 
merchants. Europe was dotted with towns 
from the Black Sea to the mouth of the Rhine. 
Gradually the burghers shook themselves free 
from the feudal lords. The cities acquired 
charters. They became rich and powerful. 
The trade from the Orient ventured into new 
channels. It crept up the Black Sea. It fol- 
lowed the Danube and the Rhine. Vienna, 
Munich, Nuremberg, Frankfort, Cologne, Brus- 
sels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and 
Bremen owed their wealth to the trade and 
commerce with the East. They developed 



84 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

credit facilities. Frankfort, Amsterdam, Brus- 
sels, and Antwerp became financial centres. 
We get some suggestion of the wealth of medi- 
aeval Europe from the wonderful town-halls, 
the guild-houses, the cathedrals, and the forti- 
fications erected during this time. 

The trade of the Orient had found new routes 
to the West. It came by caravan and boat 
across Asia and Europe, enriching cities and 
peoples on the way. For centuries the trade 
of Europe passed through southern Germany 
and Austria. The Mediterranean decayed in 
consequence. It lost its pre-eminence as the 
Danube and the Rhine became the carriers of 
commerce. Central Europe, Mitteleuropa, was 
the centre of the European world. 

In the fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire 
extended its dominion over the East and pene- 
trated west almost to the gates of Vienna. 
Western Asia was infested with brigands. 
The trade routes were no longer guarded. The 
caravan routes were interrupted. The East 
no longer communicated freely with the West 
through its accustomed channels. Constan- 
tinople was taken by the Turks in the fifteenth 
century, and the order maintained for centuries 



TEE ORIENTAL RAILWAY 85 

ceased to protect the traders. The Turks 
overran Asia Minor, the Balkans, Greece, and 
practically all of Hungary. Even Vienna was 
threatened. The whole territory from Persia 
to Hungary was in Ottoman hands. The 
traders of Italy and Portugal began to search 
for another route to India, and America was 
discovered in the quest, as was the route around 
the lower end of Africa. Columbus ventured 
into the unknown seas to find a way to India 
free from the robber-infested regions of Mesopo- 
tamia and discovered a new continent. 

With the discovery of the sea route to India, 
and the increase in shipping, trade again aban- 
doned the old routes. It forsook the Mediter- 
ranean. 

It took to the seas. It left the Danube and 
the Rhine. Within a short time the economic 
life of Europe was revolutionized. Spain and 
Portugal rose to power. The Netherland cities 
took tribute from the seas as well as from the 
land. England, an island kingdom, began to 
be a carrier. She defeated Spain, Holland, and 
the Hanseatic League. Her ships penetrated 
to the Mediterranean. London traded with 
Constantinople and distant India. Her mari- 



86 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

ners ventured to the Far East by the Cape of 
Good Hope. 

The sea assumed its ancient place. Caravans 
no longer crossed from Persia and Constan- 
tinople to the Danube and the Rhine to the 
North Sea. No longer did the commerce of the 
world pass through German lands and leave its 
golden harvest in the hands of German traders. 
The cities of South Germany lost their pre- 
eminence. They lost their wealth as well. 

The Napoleonic wars left continental Eu- 
rope prostrate. But England rose to indus- 
trial power. She became a great banking centre 
as had the Lombard cities, as had Frankfort, 
Amsterdam, and Brussels. And for nearly a 
hundred years no other nation challenged her 
position. The French built the Suez Canal, 
which was opened to traffic in 1869. This 
threatened England's control of the seas. It 
disturbed the traffic to the East about the Cape 
of Good Hope. Trade which had gone about 
the southern end of Africa for centuries now 
passed through the Mediterranean, which as- 
sumed its former importance. Just as the 
caravans in the time of the Pharaohs and the 
Caesars passed through Persia, Mesopotamia, 



TEE ORIENTAL RAILWAY 87 

Asia Minor, and Constantinople, so the com- 
merce of the nineteenth century passed through 
this same territory. 

Great Britain acquired control of the Suez 
Canal in 1875. It became the connecting link 
of her empire. It solidified her sea power. 
British ships now followed the short route to 
India. 

To-day British traders and British bankers 
draw profits from the Orient just as did the 
burghers of central Europe, just as did the 
merchants of Italy, just as did Rome, just as 
did the cities of Mesopotamia in ancient times. 
British commerce through the Suez Canal 
amounted to 12,910,278 net tons in 1914. It is 
carried by British ships. It is paid for through 
British banks. The goods are manufactured 
in British factories. The economic power of 
Great Britain, like the economic power of an- 
cient states, like the economic power of Italy 
and mediaeval Europe, is traceable largely to 
the seas and especially to the Mediterranean 
and the control of the great trade route of 
the world. The Mediterranean is again the 
''Royal Road" to the Orient, as it was for 
thousands of years. 



88 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

With the rise of German industry, German 
finance, and German ambitions, German his- 
torians have drawn attention to the wealth 
and power once enjoyed by Germany from the 
trade of the Orient. They point to the river 
highways of southern Germany, and say 1 ,. 
"Here the trade of the Orient once passed by 
our doors. It enriched our cities. It built up 
our industries. The traditions of Germany are 
identified with the years when the Danube 
and the Rhine formed the trade routes of 
Europe. England has taken this pre-eminence 
from us. But we will recall it to Germany. 
The Danube and the Rhine shall be restored to 
their ancient position. Our old cities shall 
again become the world's trading-centres, with 
Constantinople at one end and Hamburg at 
the other. We will deepen our rivers, we will 
build canals, we will construct railroads. With 
the aid of science we will overcome the ad- 
vantages which England enjoys and recapture 
the trade of the world by reopening the 'Royal 
Road' from Bagdad to Hamburg." 

And during the years that preceded the war 
the mind of Germany was definitely working 
toward this project. The Rhine had become a 



THE ORIEXTAL RAILWAY So 

great waterway. It had been deepened al- 
most to Switzerland. It was to be united by 
canal with the Danube. The North Sea and the 
Baltic were to be joined to the Black Sea, while 
the Rhine itself was to find an outlet to the 
ocean by means of a canal through German 
territory. 

There were to be direct water communica- 
tions from Hamburg, Berlin, and the industrial 
regions of west Germany to the Black Sea and 
Constantinople. The rivers were to be the 
main arteries of traffic, while the country was 
to be networked with a system of canals all 
feeding into a general system of water transpor- 
tation. 1 

1 The following are the main links in the internal system of 
waterways of central Europe either completed or projected at 
the outbreak of the war: 

(1) Union of the Rhine and Danube by the adaptation of the 
Main to canal navigation and by the canal from the Main to 
the Danube; (2) completion of the central canal between the 
Vistula and Rhine; (3) Canal from the Oder to the Danube, 
uniting the Baltic and the Black Sea; (4) adaptation of the Rhine 
as far as Basle; (5) union of the Weser and Main by means of 
the Fulda-Werra Rivers; (6) union of the Elbe and Danube by 
the Moldau; (7) union by means of canals of the Oder to the 
Danube and Vistula; (8) union of the Danube and the Dniester 
by the Vistula; (9) canalization of the Save; (10) canalization 
of the Morava and the Vardar as far as Salonika. (From The 
United States and Pangcrmania by Andre Cheradame, p. 51.) 



go THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

All of the industrial centres of Germany were 
to be reached by water communications. These 
waterways were for heavy bulk freight which 
now goes by sea. 1 And with the rivers and 
canals were railroads forming part of the Ger- 
man Oriental system. They were to follow the 
ancient caravan routes along the Rhine and 
the Danube. These were the German connec- 
tions of the Bagdad route. From Constan- 
tinople the Bagdad Railway was to traverse 
Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, following the 
old river routes to the Persian Gulf. It was 
to connect with the Tigris and Euphrates 
Rivers, which were again to assume their an- 
cient importance. Hamburg and the Rhine were 
to be joined with the far-distant Persian Gulf. 2 

Constantinople was to become a great Ger- 

1 As indicative of German river and canal development, over 
70,000,000 tons were carried on "her inland waterways in 1912. 

2 The London Times correspondent, writing from Constanti- 
nople on the occasion of the Kaiser's visit in 1898, said: "It is 
daily becoming more evident that with the development of rail- 
way connections the great overland highways to the East will 
gradually supplant the maritime routes of the land of Nineveh and 
Babylon, of Tyre and Palmyra, which forms the meeting-point 
of East and West, the link between three continents will regain 
much of its ancient importance. It is in accordance with the far- 
seeing character of German policy to have recognized this truth." 
—The Times, October 18, 1898. 



THE ORIEXTAL RAILWAY 91 

man terminal, receiving and discharging car- 
goes not only from the Mediterranean, but from 
the Black Sea, the Danube, and the Rhine, and 
the Oriental Railway from Hamburg and Ber- 
lin. It might easily become one of the three 
or four great harbors of the world. It would 
be the centre of the trade and commerce of 
Russia and the eastern Mediterranean, of the 
Balkan states, and in a measure of the entire 
Oriental and east African trade. 

Constantinople in turn would contribute to 
Germany and central Europe. It would be 
in direct water and rail communication with all 
of the great industrial cities, even with the ports 
on the North Sea. The Rhine and the Danube 
might recapture some of their former eminence; 
while the old mediaeval cities — Munich, Frank- 
fort, Mannheim, Diisseldorf, Cologne — and the 
modern city of Essen, would again become great 
cities, as they were for centuries when southern 
Germany and the Netherlands were the centres 
of the wealth and civilization of Europe. 

It may seem an exaggeration to trace the 
power of states to the control of trade and com- 
merce. Yet history discloses that practically 
every great nation reached its eminence by rea- 



92 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

son of such control. All of the great nations of 
antiquity, as well as of mediaeval and modern 
times, with the possible exception of France, 
attained the zenith of their power through the 
control of the waterways and caravan routes of 
the Mediterranean. The source of England's 
power is her command of the seas, and espe- 
cially of the "Royal Road" which connects the 
Orient with the Occident by way of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Suez Canal. 

Upon this project German engineers had been 
working for years. Science was to overcome 
the advantage which England enjoyed on the 
seas. German perseverance and German thor- 
oughness were to conquer Asia Minor, over- 
come the obstacles of nature, and compel 
India and the Far East again to send their 
wealth to the heart of Germany, as they did 
in mediaeval times. Control of the Mediter- 
ranean basin, of the trade routes of the world, 
of the commerce of Europe and western Asia, 
was one of the German objectives of the war. 
And along with this was the control of ancient 
Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, for thou- 
sands of years the centre of the civilization of 
the world. 



CHAPTER IX 

WORLD EMPIRE 

The mind of Germany has been more defi- 
nitely fixed upon the Bagdad Railway and the 
"Drive to the East" than upon any other im- 
perialistic project. This has awakened the im- 
agination of the people. It has received every 
support the government could give. The 
Kaiser proclaimed himself the eternal friend 
of the Turk; the protector of the Mohamme- 
dans in Asia and Africa. The sending of the 
Panther to Agadir in 191 1, which precipitated 
the Morocco crisis, was a demonstration of 
moral support to Islam and the Mohammedans 
of North Africa. The bankers and financiers, 
the great iron and steel interests — the indus- 
trials of all classes, the intellectuals, and many 
of the common people, came to look upon the 
project of a Pan-German Empire much as 
Bismarck looked upon the north German 
federation as the inevitable and necessary 
destiny of Germany. The overseas colonies 
and adventures in Morocco and South Africa, 

93 



94 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

in the Pacific and Kiaoutchou were of small 
concern in comparison with this dream of em- 
pire, either economic or political, extending 
from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf and 
containing 200,000,000 people. The Morocco 
incident, the intrigues in the Balkans, the diplo- 
matic controversies with England, France, and 
Russia during the last twenty years, and finally 
the war itself, revolve in large part about this 
adventure in diplomacy, statecraft, and high 
finance. 

The Bagdad Railway was a means of eco- 
nomic, military, and political power. It was 
an agency of imperialism, of control of the 
Balkan states, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Meso- 
potamia. It was to be a through system from 
Hamburg to Bagdad with connections running 
to every portion of the German Empire. It 
passed through the heart of Europe. It ce- 
mented the union of Germany and Austria- 
Hungary. It placed the Balkan states under 
the potential dominion of Prussia. It ran 
threateningly close to Roumania. It passed 
through Serbia, which must be under German 
control in order that the railway should pass 
through German territory. Greece lies just 



WORLD EMPIRE 05 

outside of its pathway, easily accessible for 
trade and military conquest. The Adriatic 
is but a short distance away with Italy in a 
position of easy vulnerability by land and sea 
from Trieste and Salonika. The soldiers of the 
Kaiser could be easily mobilized against this 
whole territory. 

Turkey and Bulgaria were under German in- 
fluence. But little Serbia blocked the corridor 
to the Mediterranean and the Orient. And 
Serbia was unwilling to prostrate herself to 
Austria. The railway must pass through Ger- 
manic territory from Hamburg to the Persian 
Gulf. In addition, Austria-Hungary was covet- 
ous of an outlet to the Mediterranean through 
the Vardar Valley to Salonika. Austria-Hun- 
gary was driving to the southwest and Germany 
to the southeast. The Jugo-Slavs of Serbia 
stood athwart the pathway of Pan-German 
conquest. The assassination of Grand Duke 
Ferdinand was the pretext. The blocking of 
the Bagdad Railway and with it the project 
of Pan-German world conquest was probably 
the real cause of the ultimatum of 1914. For 
Serbia was increasing in prestige and power. 
She was supported by Russia. 



q6 the only possible peace 

An examination of the Mediterranean basin 
indicates how the railway, with its branches 
radiating out like a fan, also fits into a plan of 
eonomic and military control of Turkey and 
western Asia. It covers Anatolia, Armenia, 
Syria, Palestine, the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, 
Mesopotamia, and on down to the Persian 
Gulf, which was to be the eastern terminus of 
the system. Western Asia was to be net- 
worked by a German railroad system which 
spread out from the eastern side of the 
Bosporus. It checked Russian advance into 
Asia Minor from the north. It tapped Persia 
under Russian-British control and brought 
that country under German influence. It 
threatened Persia and India as well. 

The harbors on the eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean were to become German ports. 
They were potential naval bases. Branch lines 
ran southward through Syria and Palestine, 
easily accessible to these harbors. This brought 
the arms of Germany and Turkey close to the 
Suez Canal and Egypt. The distance from 
the southern terminus to Port Said was only 
three hundred rrules. This region is semidesert, 
wanting in water and vegetation. But it is level 



WORLD EMPIRE 97 

and easy of transport. A military railway 
could readily be built into Egypt for the trans- 
portation of troops. Such an attack, if success- 
ful, would cut off British connections with 
India, Australia, the east coast of Africa, and 
her Far-Eastern possessions. It w T ould cut 
off France from her colonies. It would per- 
manently end the British project of a Cape to 
Cairo Railway through eastern Africa planned 
by Cecil Rhodes, as well as the British proj- 
ect for an inclusive British empire beginning 
at the Cape of Good Hope on the south and the 
Straits of Gibraltar on the west, and extending 
by way of Egypt, Arabia, and the Persian 
Gulf to India. 

To defend her empire England would be re- 
quired to maintain an immense standing army, 
possibly a million men, in the Near and Far 
East. She would have to erect munition plants 
and provide great stores and equipments. 
For Egypt is the keystone of the British struc- 
ture. Land transportation is so much more 
rapid than water that control of the railways of 
western Asia by Germany would place England 
at a terrible disadvantage. It would be a 
checkmate so complete that Great Britain 



98 the only possible peace 

would scarcely be able to accept the gage of 
war for the retention of her empire. No matter 
what the British alliances may be, no matter 
from what corner of the globe her support may 
come, she could scarcely expect to cope with 
German and Turkish armies in control of the 
land transportation as well as the strategical 
seaports upon the eastern Mediterranean. 

Moreover, possession of the Persian Gulf 
would give Germany a naval base on the 
Indian Ocean from which her fleet could strike 
at British possessions in the Far East. How 
fully this danger was appreciated is indicated 
by the diplomatic moves, the demonstrations of 
force, the occupation of territories by Germany 
and England in the Persian Gulf which was a 
centre of activity by these Powers for nearly 
twenty years. 1 In fact, with the exception of 
Canada and the west coast of Africa, the entire 
British Empire, as well as the Near and Far 

1 Admiral A. T. Mahan, the authority on sea-power, wrote : 
"The control of the Persian Gulf by a foreign state of consider- 
able naval potentiality, a 'fleet in being' there, based upon a 
strong military port, would reproduce the relations of Cadiz, 
Gibraltar, and Malta to the Mediterranean. It would flank all 
the routes to the farther East, to India, and to Australia, the 
last two actually internal to the empire, regarded as a political 
system; and although at present Great Britain unquestionably 



WORLD EMPIRE 99 

Eastern possessions of France, were involved in 
the struggle. 

The completion of the Bagdad Railway and 
the control of Turkey would also place southern 
Europe, Africa, and Asia under the menace of 
Berlin. The Mediterranean had become as 
strategic to-day as it was in the days of Rome. 

German ascendancy in the Near East would 
also threaten the states bordering upon the 
Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Persia. It 
threatened France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. 
Egypt, Tripoli, Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco 
would be under the menace of German battle- 
ships. 

With Germany in control of the Dardanelles 
Russia would be able to reach the seas only 
with German assent. Her naval power would 
be under German control. She would be un- 
able to sell her wheat, oil, and other raw ma- 
terials where she chose. This would make it 



could check such a fleet, so placed, by a division of her own, it 
might well require a detachment large enough to affect seriously 
the general strength of her naval position." — Retrospect and 
Prospect, by A. T. Mahan, pp. 224-5. 

For discussion of British strategic interests in the Persian 
Gulf and the conflict with Germany over this part of the world, see 
:.' ) The German :, pp. 82 et seq. 



ioo THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

impossible for her to negotiate loans except 
through Berlin. She might be compelled to 
grant preferential or exclusive tariffs and 
privileges to Germany under which her own in- 
dustries could not live. She would be coerced 
into granting concessions for the development 
of her resources, as was done after the Japanese 
war. 

The war has shown the military value of rail- 
roads. Strategic railways are the equivalent 
of a great army. A small force with well- 
arranged railroad transportation at its back 
is more than a match for a much larger force 
which has to rely upon water transportation 
for support. An army with a railroad is mobile. 
It can move quickly. It can be here to-day and 
elsewhere to-morrow. It can be fed easily. 
It can be supplied with munitions. Reinforce- 
ments can be quickly brought forward. A rail- 
way moves in secret. Not so a fleet. Its 
movements are known. And a nation which 
desires to mobilize secretly can do it by rail 
quickly and quietly. 

Whoever controls the railroads of a country 
controls the life of that country. Military 
strategy as well as economic development lay 



WORLD EMPIRE 101 

back of the plan of Cecil Rhodes for a Cape of 
Good Hope to Cairo Railway, as well as the 
efforts of Great Britain to secure control of the 
southern section of the Bagdad Railway which 
terminated at the Persian Gulf; or when Ger- 
many would not consent to such control, to 
have this section internationalized. This con- 
sideration also lay back of British proposals for 
a British Bagdad Railway long discussed in 
Parliament, which was to start from the Per- 
sian Gulf, run northward through the Tigris- 
Euphrates River territory to Bagdad, and from 
Bagdad westward through Damascus to the 
Mediterranean at a point somewhere between 
the Island of Cyprus and Egypt. Such a rail- 
road would have been under exclusive British 
control. It would not connect with Con- 
stantinople. It would offer no means of con- 
nection with Turkey or Russia. It would 
block Turkish and Russian advance from the 
north. It would be free from attack by any 
of the European Powers, and would place Syria, 
Palestine, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Persia 
under British control. Had this project been 
carried out, the German Bagdad Railway would 
probably never have been ventured on, and the 



102 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

European War might have been averted. The 
project was abandoned, however, when England 
acquired control of the Suez Canal and an all- 
water route to her Eastern possessions. 1 

Such is the importance which railroads play 
in modern wars. The Bagdad Railway was 
the key to the Pan-German dream of empire. 

Germany, it is true, did not herald any such 
military designs. She dared not. To dis- 
cuss the military aspects of the railway would 
confirm the apprehensions of the rest of Europe, 
and justify their efforts to thwart the proj- 
ect. And French assistance and co-operation 
from the other Powers was necessary because 
Germany was unable to finance the railroad 
herself. Moreover, the publication of military 
and political plans might have caused Turkey 
to take fright at the thought of economic 
penetration being converted into military oc- 
cupancy. 

Some German authorities, however, have 
been frank in their admissions that the Bagdad 
Railway was for other than purely economic 

1 For a discussion of the British plans for a railway from the 
Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf see The German Road to the 
East, Evans Lewin, p. 55. 



WORLD EMPIRE 103 

purposes. Doctor Paul Rohrbach is recognized 
as the most eminent German authority on the 
Near East. He is the author of a book pub- 
lished in 191 1 entitled Die Bagdad Bahn, as 
well as German World Policies. Doctor Rohr- 
bach says: 

"England can be attacked and mortally 
wounded by land from Europe only in one 
place — Egypt. The loss of Egypt would mean 
for England not only the end of her dominion 
over the Suez Canal, and of her connections 
with India and the Far East, but would proba- 
bly entail also the loss of her possessions in 
central and east Africa. The conquest of 
Egypt by a Mohammedan Power, like Turkey, 
would also imperil England's hold over her 
sixty million Mohammedan subjects in India, 
besides being to her prejudice in Afghanistan 
and Persia. . . . The stronger Turkey be- 
comes, the greater will be the danger for 
England, if, in a German-English conflict, 
Turkey should be on the side of Germany. 1 

Another German writer says: 

"When England — the European outsider 
who lags far behind Germany in national power, 
individual talent, and political strength — loses 
India, then her world power will disappear. 
The ancient highroad of the world is the one 

1 Die Bagdad Bahn, p. 47. 



104 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

which leads from Europe to India — the road 
used by Alexander — the highway which leads 
from the Danube via Constantinople to the 
valley of the Euphrates, and by northern 
Prussia, Herat and Kabal to the Ganges. 
Every yard of the Bagdad Railway which is 
laid brings the owner of the railway nearer 
India. What Alexander performed, and Na- 
poleon undoubtedly planned, can be achieved 
by a third treading in their footsteps. England 
views the Bagdad Railway as a very real and 
threatening danger to herself — and rightly so. 
She can never undo or annul its effects. ,, 1 

1 Trampe, Der Kampf um die Dardanelles., Stuttgart, 19 16. 



CHAPTER X 

THE DEUTSCHE BANK AND FINANCIAL 
IMPERIALISM 

International banking and a marvellous 
machinery of credit was the second agency of 
German imperialism. Germany had developed 
banking as a means of conquest, political as 
well as economic. None of the other Powers 
approached her in the thoroughness of inter- 
national banking agencies. 

There are seven or eight great financial insti- 
tutions in Germany that are far more than 
banks. They are primarily exploiting con- 
cerns. They are also political agencies. Their 
purpose is to advance the fatherland. They 
have branches all over the world, through which 
they secure concessions and underwrite foreign 
loans. They sell munitions. Through inter- 
locking directorates these banks control hun- 
dreds of corporations in other countries. They 
operate in Turkey, Asia, Africa, South America, 

and Mexico. They have connections in Rus- 

105 



106 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

sia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, and 
Sweden. They are the chief agencies of Ger- 
man imperialism and economic penetration. 
Branch banks operating in other countries 
with headquarters in Berlin are the diplomatic 
agents of the government as well as of the 
big industrials and financiers. They know 
everything possible about the countries in 
which they operate. German eyes look out 
from bank windows in almost every country 
in the world. 

The Deutsche Bank is the most powerful of 
all these exploiting institutions. It was the 
advance agent of the railway. It secured the 
concessions not only for the Bagdad Railway, 
but for harbors, docks, warehouses, oil, and 
resources of all kinds. It financed the build- 
ing of the road. It placed the contracts with 
German iron and steel manufacturers. It en- 
joyed colossal profits. It negotiated sales of 
munitions. It v/as the representative of the 
trading classes. It reported to the Foreign 
Office on political conditions. 

The Deutsche Bank is a semiofficial institu- 
tion, closely integrated into the empire. It is 
organized much as is the army. It commands 



THE DEUTSCHE BANK 107 

the best thought of Germany. It is interlocked 
with agencies of science and intelligence as is the 
General Staff. It is also interlocked with the 
big iron, steel, munition, and other concerns. 
Its director, and one of the prime movers of the 
Bagdad Railway, was Doctor Helfferich, late 
imperial finance minister of Germany. 

The Deutsche Bank undermined the economic 
life of Turkey. Doctor David Starr Jordan 
says of the Deutsche Bank that it is "a nation 
within a nation, which replaces the Sultan as 
master of the rest of his domain." He quotes 
from a Turkish writer who says: "This bank 
draws for itself the riches of the land, exhaust- 
ing not the working class alone, but a whole 
nation which is dying from its operations." l 

The profits from the promotion and building 
of the Bagdad Railway were colossal. The 
bank and those associated with the bank in 
the underwriting, are said to have earned 
$25,000,000 as commissions, and besides to 
have "saved" $45,000,000 on the cost of con- 
struction. These sums were not "saved" to 
Turkey which guaranteed the loans. They 
were "saved" to the bankers and contractors. 

1 JVotI<Ts Work, July, 1913. 



108 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

These are the estimates of British commenta- 
tors. The German estimates of the "savings" 
are somewhat less, but the commissions alone 
are given as #34,000,000 or $9,000,000 more 
than the British estimate. 

No such profits are to be made at home. 
That is why capital ventures out to undeveloped 
countries. And the profits to the promoters 
and underwriters was one of the reasons for 
German insistence on control of the railway and 
a free hand in the exploitation of Turkey. 
For the profits were estimated at as high as 
40 per cent. 

The Deutsche Bank and influences identified 
with the bank absorbed to themselves the rich- 
est opportunities in Turkey and Asia Minor. 
They secured contracts for development work. 
They aided German business men in every 
possible way. 1 Through control of credit they 
could encourage one native industry and de- 
stroy another. They could discriminate in 
favor of German firms and against the firms of 
other countries. They could put competing 
industry out of business. 

J For further discussion of methods employed by Germany in her 
economic penetration of other countries, see Chapters XI and 
XII. 



THE DEUTSCHE BANK 109 

This has been the German practice not only 
in Turkey, but in Italy, Greece, Roumania, and 
France as well. For the foreign bank is not 
interested in the welfare of the country in which 
it operates. It is interested in profits for the 
stockholders and the imperialistic designs of 
the fatherland. 

The Bagdad Railway was closely interlocked 
with the Deutsche Bank through common 
directors. It was really controlled by the 
bank. It was one of its many offspring. 
And as a result of this merger, together with 
the concessions for other undertakings, the 
economic life of Turkey was rapidly passing 
under German control. There was little chance 
for development by the Turkish people. Offi- 
cial posts and important positions were given 
to Germans. The natives were not permitted 
to rise. For that would endanger foreign con- 
trol. The dominant nation is then able to 
point to the country and say: "See, the natives 
are not fit for self-government." This is what 
the imperialistic Powers are all saying about 
their dependencies. 

Yet the control of all avenues of advance- 
ment by an outside Power makes it impossible 



no THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

for a people ever to become fit for self-govern- 
ment. They remain hewers of wood and draw- 
ers of water, especially when it is to the interest 
of their masters to prevent any progress on the 
part of the native races. After forty j^ears of 
Diaz and the control of Mexico by foreign con- 
cessionaires the population of that country 
was in poverty and ignorance. The Mexicans 
were peons. They owned less than one-fifth 
as much property, according to United States 
Consul Marion Letcher, as that claimed by 
Americans alone. Financial exploitation had 
not benefited the Mexican people, however 
greatly the country's exports have grown. 
It has enriched American, British, German, 
and French mine-owners, railway-promoters, 
oil companies, and plantation-owners. But it 
left 15,000,000 people in abject poverty and 
dense ignorance. The beneficence of foreign V7 
assistance to weak nations is largely a fiction of 
the exploiting classes. 

Financial or economic imperialism is much 
the same the world over. There is no humani- 
tarianism in its methods, whatever its profes- 
sions may be. Far from foreign penetration 
being a blessing to a weak country, it means 



TEE DEUTSCHE BAXK in 

the loss of political liberty, the confiscation of 
lands and mines, often ruthless taxes, extortion 
of all kinds, and actual servitude, or the equiva- 
lent of it, to the natives. 1 

1 For exhaustive studies of the effect of imperialism and for- 
eign capital in weak states see the following authorities: Egypt's 
£•-•:. by Theodore Rothstein; "Capitalism and Imperialism in 
South Africa," Contemporary Review, 1900, by John A. Hobson; 
The War in South Africa, by the same author; Blood and Gold in 
South Africa, by G. H. Perris; The Crime of the Congo, by Conan 
Doyle; Great Portuguese Nyassaland, by W. B. Worsfeld; a 
series of articles by Ray Stannard Baker on Hawaii in the Ameri- 
can Magazine, 191 1 and 1912; Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy, 
by E. D. Morrel; and other treatises on India, South Africa, 
and Mexico. 



CHAPTER XI 

CONFLICTS OF HIGH FINANCE 

The Deutsche Bank rapidly undermined 
French and English influence in Turkey and 
the Near East. For England and France had 
been the favored nations in Turkey. England 
exercised a protectorate over the "Sick Man 
of Europe," and her bankers and business men 
had built up large interests there. 1 France was 
the popular nation. The young Turks were 
educated in Paris and French was the official 
language of the country. There were from six 
to eight hundred French schools in Turkey as 
opposed to a dozen German ones, while scholar- 
ships by the hundreds were awarded to Turkish 
students for study in Paris. France has always 
looked upon the Near East as her sphere of 
financial influence, just as England has looked 
upon it as her sphere of political power. A great 
part of the foreign loans of France are in Mo- 

1 For discussion of the interests of England in Turkey prior 
to the advent of Germany, see Quarterly Review, October, 19 17, 
p. 491. 

112 



CONFLICTS OF HIGH FINANCE 113 

hammcdan countries. Three-quarters of the 
foreign capital in Turkey and 55 per cent, of 
the Turkish national debt is owned in France. 
The banking in the Balkan states was also 
largely under French control, while the great 
investing institutions of Paris maintained 
branches in these states. The French have 
long been ascendant in Syria. They built the 
Syrian railroads as well as other undertakings 
of a quasi-public character. French loans and 
investments in Turkey and the Balkans were 
estimated at $1,200,000,000 at the outbreak of 
the war. British investments in public funds, 
in railroads, and in mines in Turkey, Asia Mi- 
nor, and the Balkans are also large. 

The interests of the financial classes, and 
especially of the bankers of Great Britain, 
France, and Germany are closely interwoven 
with the imperialistic activities of these coun- 
tries. All of the Powers have been close 
to w r ar on several occasions over economic con- 
flicts. The Morocco incident of 191 1 had its 
origin in the struggle for concessions, privileges, 
and loans. Russia went to war with Japan 
over economic claims in Manchuria. The Boer 
War was brought about by promoters and specu- 



ii4 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

lators in the diamond and gold mines in the 
Transvaal. China was near dismemberment in 
the interest of concession seekers and financiers 
after the Chinese-Japanese War. Even the 
United States was close to serious trouble with 
Germany as a result of the Venezuela incident, 
when the Kaiser threatened to send a fleet 
to Venezuelan waters to enforce his demands. 
It is impossible to know the extent to which 
financial conflicts in the Near East contributed 
to the war. It is, however, no exaggeration to 
say that the Foreign Offices are deeply interested 
in the investments, trade, and economic inter- 
ests of their citizens. When one considers 
how intimately the Deutsche Bank, the firms 
of Krupp and Mannesmann Brothers, the rail- 
road-builders and traders are merged into the 
German Empire; when one contemplates the 
identity of the personnel of the investors, 
bankers, railroad-builders, and mine-owners of 
Great Britain with the members of Parliament; 
when it is considered how often the French 
Foreign Office has served the big financial 
institutions of Paris, it is easy to see how the 
economic and financial interests of these coun- 
tries become a question of national honor and 



COXFLICTS OF HIGH FINANCE 115 

a conflict of high finance becomes an issue of 
political concern. 1 

Just as trade and commerce are at war all 
over the world, so the investing classes and 
banks, with branches in distant parts, have re- 
corded the same economic conflict. In the Bal- 
kans, in Turkey, in Syria, and Asia Minor, the 
Deutsche Bank and the French and British 
banks were seeking concessions, mining privi- 
leges, and contracts from the entrance of Ger- 
many into Turkey in the eighties down to the 
outbreak of the war. These conflicts were 
registered in the Foreign Office; they formed the 
subject of diplomatic controversy; they were 
voiced in Parliaments and the press. A great 
part of the diplomacy of the past generation 
centres about the activities and intrigues of 
investors and bankers whose investments 
amount to many billions of dollars. 

The Deutsche Bank, like the Bagdad Rail- 

1 The final negotiations over the Bagdad Railway between Eng- 
land and Germany in Berlin in June, 1914, indicate the elaborate 
care taken by the Foreign Office to protect and promote the in- 
terests of concession seekers and traders, oil interests, rights of 
control of transportation on the rivers, development projects, 
docks, and other activities of investors. See Quarterly Review, 
October, 1917, "The Bagdad Railway Negotiations." 



n6 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

way, disturbed the old equilibrium. It chal- 
lenged the existing economic interests of Eng- 
land and France. And German finance was 
thorough; it was mysterious; it was insidious. 
It had the financial power of Germany at its 
back. It was frankly aided by the Foreign 
Office and the most skilful diplomats. Oper- 
ating in a thousand secret ways, it made rapid 
headway not only at Constantinople but all 
over the Turkish Empire. German bankers 
were followed by representatives of German 
manufacturers. Soon German goods began 
to crowd out the products of France and Great 
Britain. English exports to Turkey in 1898 
amounted to #51,400,000. German exports 
to Turkey at that time were but #2,180,000. 
In 191 1 English exports were #2,750,000 less 
than in 1898, while German exports were 
#24,650,000 more than they had been thirteen 
years before. 1 The Bagdad Railway was also 

1 Describing the methods of the Deutsche Bank in Turkey 
and the difficulties of British traders in competition with the 
German, an Englishman in Turkey, writing in the Quarterly Re- 
view, says: 

"The Deutsche Bank and its connections, and, for the matter 
of that, other German banks, may be compared to a big cobweb, 
of which the centre is Berlin or some other spot in Germany, with 
immense threads stretching out all over the world in a crisscross 



COXFLICTS OF UIGI1 FINANCE 117 

a menace to French investments in Russia, 
said to amount to #3, 000,000,000. For the 
railway was a wedge between the two countries. 
The economic life of Russia was far more 
seriously menaced. Russia had long been am- 
bitious for the Dardanelles. The Dardanelles 
were her outlet to the Mediterranean. And 
access to the seas is necessary to enable her 
to market her wheat, oil, and timber, of which 
she has an abundance and of which western 

network — always the web, but always German. Did a mer- 
chant wish to do business, the bank would find him an agent in 
the country. The agent would be some one, of course, probably 
a German or Austrian, recommended by the local branch; and, 
if he was a native agent, he would be promised the bank's financial 
support if he would bring over his clientele or portfolio of cus- 
tomers to the German merchant and throw over his British 
houses. The parties, that is, merchant and customer, would 
soon be in communication through the agent. Did the German 
merchant want to be financed ? That would be easy. The 
bank's idea of the merchant's dealings with the customer would 
be 60 much against the invoice and bill of lading, so much by a 
three months' bill, and the balance in a six months' bill, or some 
such term, perhaps of longer date. The bank would even offer 
to take charge of the whole matter from first to last, and, if the 
merchant desired, would finance him up to 70 per cent., or 80 
per cent., of the amount against the bank's receiving the bills 
of lading or other securities. If the German merchant were the 
creditor pure and simple, the local buyer might give trouble: 
he would most likely pay the amount of cash against the bills 
of lading of the goods, in order to get possession of them, but he 
might refuse to meet the first bill or the second on the ground 



u8 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Europe is in great need. Moreover, Russia 
is a debtor nation. She has borrowed heavily, 
especially from France, to which country she 
has gone not only for money with which to 
build her railroads but for military assistance 
as well. And Russia pays the interest upon 
her debts by the export of raw materials, espe- 
cially wheat. She cannot pay it in gold. She 
has to exchange her wealth which is converted 
into gold in the markets of the world. This 

that the goods were not up to sample, or on one of the thousand 
and one pretexts which a debtor will raise when his creditor is 
many hundred miles away in another country. But, once the 
transaction gets into the hands of the bank, a powerful bank 
on the spot, he would be a brave debtor who dared to refuse to 
honor his bill of exchange on presentation for payment by the 
bank. He would have to have a very good excuse to venture 
on such a course. If it was a genuine claim, it would be attended 
to by the bank, with firmness and justice to all parties; otherwise 
he would incur the risk of a lawsuit, with all the influence of the 
bank, embassy, and consulate against him, the cutting off of his 
credit, the impossibility of doing trade with Germany or even 
with other countries, as he would be blacklisted with all the 
banks. The merchant could, therefore, in most circumstances 
get time if he really required it, a renewal of one of his bills or 
more, but in return he would have to give further orders or make 
other concessions. Meanwhile the manufacturer got his money 
and set out to get further orders and to provide further mer- 
chandise for the customer, perhaps with the encouragement of 
the bank, but always under its advice and protection, and with 
the aid of its agents. 
"It is not proposed here to draw comparisons between this 



COXFLICTS OF HIGH FIXAXCE 119 

is one reason why a free outlet to the seas was 
so necessary to Russia. Far more important, 
Russian industrial development is dependent 
upon free contact with the outside world. She 
must have a market in which to buy for her 
180,000,000 people of whom less than 5 per cent, 
are engaged in industry. The great majority 
of the Russian people are peasants. And they 
buy in the English, French, American, and 
German markets. Should Germany control 

system and that of British banks. The nearest approach to 
the German system is that, when the British merchant gives 
credit to oversea customers, he sends the drafts or bills of ex- 
change for acceptance or presentation through his own bank, 
say, at Bradford, which institution hands them to some other 
institution in London, which in turn hands them to the agency 
of a foreign bank and later they are presented. If the bills are 
paid, well and good; if they are not paid, they are probably re- 
ferred for instructions or they are protested and returned to 
England, and weeks and months are lost over disputes, probably 
ending with a lawsuit, in which the manufacturer is at a great 
disadvantage. In such a case, the merchant, hundreds of miles 
distant from his customer, is to a great extent dependent on his 
agent. The bank's action is a pure banking action, a mechanical 
form; and, although it may not suit the customer to have his 
bills protested, yet he will put forward a sufficient excuse at the 
time of 'protest' in order to cover himself as against the bank, 
and the bank is no further interested in the matter. The agent, 
too, may not be quite straightforward; and there is no bank to 
control him as the German bank controls agents recommended 
by itself." — "German Methods in Turkey," Quarterly Review, 
1917, p. 303. 



120 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the Dardanelles she could compel Russia to 
buy exclusively from her. She could blockade 
her from the seas. When it is considered that 
the foreign trade of Russia (1914) was in excess 
of a billion dollars it is apparent how valuable 
the control of this trade would be to a nation 
organized as is Germany. 1 

Thus, the Bagdad Railway and German 
penetration into Turkey threatened to end the 
economic freedom of Russia. It ended her 
plan for the control of Constantinople and the 
Bosporus. It ended her hopes in Asiatic Tur- 
key, especially in Armenia where she claimed 
"interests" even though they had never ripened 
into possessions. The railway was also a 
menace to Russia's back door by way of the 
Caucasus while the branch line to Persia 
threatened her influence in that country as 
well as the very valuable oil and other con- 
cessions secured in 1907 and 191 2, when Persia 
was divided into spheres of influence between 
Great Britain and Russia. 

The economic and financial interests of Eng- 

1 This was obviously the purpose of Germany in creating the 
buffer states on the Black Sea and the Baltic, which under Ger- 
man control would exclude Russia from contact with the outside 
world except through German-controlled channels. 



COX F LI CIS OF HIGH FINANCE 121 

land, France, and Russia in this part of the 
world were all in serious peril by reason of 
German ascendancy in Turkey. The trade, 
commerce, and investments involved was not 
far from $10,000,000,000, the investments alone 
being in the neighborhood of six to seven bil- 
lion dollars. The foreign trade of Russia 
amounts to a billion dollars a year, while that 
of Turkey and the Balkan states is $800,- 
000,000 more. The total foreign trade of the 
Mediterranean countries (1914) was about 
$2,400,000,000. Including the Mediterranean 
trade of Russia and Austria-Hungary it is very 
much more. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF 
EUROPE 

Thoroughness is characteristic of Germany. 
It is characteristic of science, of industry, of 
military methods. It is characteristic of Ger- 
man imperialism as well. This is what fright- 
ened Europe. 

The other Powers were familiar with eco- 
nomic penetration of their own kind. It is care- 
less, unorganized, accidental. It is not officially 
recognized in the foreign policies of the coun- 
try. It is carried on sub rosa. It is done under 
an assumption of international trade, of carry- 
ing civilization to the savages, of bettering 
their condition, of opening up their resources. 
When conflicts arose with other Powers they 
were usually disposed of by diplomacy or a 
show of force on the part of the Foreign Office. 

Not so with German imperialism. It is 
official. It is scientific. It is ruthless in its 
completeness. It is worked out in advance 



ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF EUROPE 123 

with the care of a military campaign. And 
Macht is a frankly avowed part of imperialism. 
The Kaiser's orders to his soldiers when they 
departed for China at the time of the Boxer 
outrages, on his visit to Tangier, the discus- 
sion of colonial matters in the Reichstag sug- 
gested a disregard of conventions and the rights 
of weak peoples that shocked the other Powers. 
Moreover, all Europe was being enveloped in 
a financial web that was secret and mysterious. 
Branches or agents of the German exploiting 
banks were operating everywhere. They even 
borrowed money in England and France with 
which to acquire control of banks and indus- 
tries in European countries. French bankers 
loaned one-third of the capital for the building 
of the Bagdad Railway against the protests of 
the government which refused to permit the 
shares of the railway to be listed on the Bourse. 
Money was borrowed in France and Great 
Britain and used to acquire control of bank- 
ing institutions in Italy and the Balkan states 
as well as to develop German industry and 
overseas enterprises. The methods employed 
were those of the great banks in Wall Street 
in creating a monopoly. The German banks 



124 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

would issue bonds paying a low but secure 
rate of interest, and sell them to the investors 
in the exploited country. They would retain 
the capital shares which represented little or 
no investment, and on which large returns 
were expected. This was a method employed 
in France, Italy, Switzerland, and other coun- 
tries in which there was an investing class ac- 
customed to the purchase of bonds and de- 
bentures. These activities were promoted by 
the seven or eight big exploiting banks of Berlin 
and Frankfort of which the Deutsche Bank is 
the chief. The methods of economic pene- 
tration employed are described by Henri Hauser 
in a work entitled Economic Germany : Ger- 
man Industry Considered as a Factor Making 
for War. In these activities the author sees 
agencies of political penetration and world 
dominion. 

Mr. Hauser shows how great works of Thys- 
sen were dotted all over France — Jouaville, 
Bouligny, Batilly, and Caen — under fictitious 
French names, concealing their German con- 
nections. He points out how the Allgemeine 
Elektrizitdtsgesellschaft acquired great power 
in Rouen, Nantes, Chateauroux, and Algiers. 



ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF EUROPE 125 

He speaks of the semi-conquests won by Ger- 
man firms at Seville, Granada, Buenos Aires, 
Montevideo, Mendoza, Santiago, and Val- 
paraiso. He speaks of the economic dependence 
of Turkey, Italy, and Switzerland, of how they 
have "shared the fate" of France by these 
same enterprises. In these pseudo-Swiss and 
pseudo-Italian companies Germans held the 
share capital while native citizens held the 
debentures, whose small income did not at- 
tract the German financiers. Thus, he says, 
the native Swiss and Italian citizens were sup- 
porting enterprises competing with the business 
of their fellow citizens, and were allowing the 
profits to go to Germans. Hauser also dis- 
cusses a study of German industry in Italy 
by M. Giovanni Preziosi, entitled Germany's 
Plan for the Conquest of Italy, which shows 
that German financiers have succeeded grad- 
ually in absorbing the economic energies of 
an entire people with its establishments of 
credit, shipping companies, and manufacturing 
firms. It was even able to corrupt Italian 
political life, overthrow ministries, and control 
elections. "Here, as in Switzerland," says 
M. Preziosi "the pseudo-Italian German banks 



126 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

act as a pump which pumps out of Italy and 
pumps into Germany." 1 

German exploitation is thorough. It is 
nationalistic. It cares little or nothing for 
other countries. It thinks of the fatherland. 
The commercial treaty secured from Russia 
immediately following the Russian-Japanese 
war is an example of German industrial 
methods, a treaty so exhausting to Russia, and 
so preferential to Germany that Russia refused 
to renew it in 1914. It was designed to make 
it almost impossible for Russia to develop her 
industries, her mines, her trade, and commerce. 
The purpose was to keep Russia a peasant 
state under German industrial dominion. 

German financiers and business men were 
fast securing control of Italy before the war. 
This was accomplished through the control 
of banking. The Balkan states were being 
Germanized. The weakness of Roumania 
when she entered the war was due largely to 
the fact that Germany had so undermined 
her life through the control of banks, business, 
the press, education, the chambers of com- 

1 Henri Hauser, Economic Germany : German Industry Consid- 
ered as a Factor Making for War. 



ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF EUROPE 127 

merce, and politics that the country was only 
a shell of a nation. Her people were in vassal- 
age. They were peasants and workers. Her 
men of talent were in the employ of Germany. 
There was an appearance of political sover- 
eignty, but that was all. There had been no 
annexation of territory, but there was an al- 
most complete annexation of the country. 
The agents of German finance and German 
economic penetration are also to be found in 
Sweden, Norway, and Greece; they reach out 
to the countries of South America and the 
Orient. They interlock with thousands of 
corporations all over the world. 

Describing the methods of economic pene- 
tration employed by Germany, Doctor E. J. 
Dillon, one of the best informed of English- 
men on the Near East, says: 

"The objective being the subjugation of 
Europe to Teutonic sway, the execution of the 
plan was attempted by two different sets of 
measures, each of which supplemented the 
other: military and naval efficiency on the 
one hand, and pacific interpenetration on the 
other. The former has been often and ade- 
quately described; the latter has not yet at- 
tracted the degree of attention it merits. For 



128 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

one thing, it was unostentatious and unavoid- 
able, tinged with the color of legitimate trade 
and industry. Practically every country in 
Europe, and many lands beyond the seas, were 
covered with networks of economic relations 
which, without being always emanations of 
the governmental brains, were never devoid 
of a definite political purpose. While Great 
Britain, and in a lesser degree, France, dis- 
tracted by parliamentary strife or intent on 
domestic reforms, left trade and commerce to 
private initiative and the law of supply and 
demand, the German Government watched 
over all big commercial transactions, inter- 
wove them with political interests, and re- 
garded every mark invested in a foreign coun- 
try not merely as capital bringing in interest 
in the ordinary way, but also as political seed 
bearing fruit to be ingathered when Der Tag 
should dawn. Thus, France and Britain ad- 
vanced loans to various countries — to Greece 
for instance — at lower rates of interest than 
the credit of those states warranted, but they 
bargained for no political gain in return. Ger- 
many, on the contrary, insisted on every such 
transaction being paid in political or economic 
advantages as well as pecuniary returns. And 
by these means she tied the hands of most 
European nations with bonds twisted by strands 
which they themselves were foolish enough to 
supply. Italy, Russia, Turkey, Roumania, 
Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, and the Scan- 
dinavian states are all instructive instances 



ECO NO MIC COX QUEST OF EUROPE 129 

of this plan. Bankers and their staffs, direc- 
tors of works and factories, agents of ship- 
ping companies, commercial travellers, German 
colonies in various foreign cities, military in- 
structors to foreign armies, schools and school- 
masters abroad, heads of commercial houses 
in the different capitals, were all so many 
agencies toiling ceaselessly for the same pur- 
pose. The effect of their manoeuvres was to 
extract from all those countries the wealth 
needed for their subjugation. One of the most 
astounding instances of the success of these 
hardy manipulations is afforded by the Banca 
Commerciale of Italy, which was a thoroughly 
German concern, and held in its hands most of 
the financial establishments, trades, and in- 
dustries of Italy. This all-powerful institution 
possessed in 1914 a capital of £6,240,000 of 
which 63 per cent, was subscribed by Italian 
shareholders, 20 per cent, by Swiss, 14 per 
cent, by French, and only 2 l / 2 per cent, by 
Germans and Austrians combined ! And the 
astounding exertions put forward by the Ger- 
mans during the first twelvemonth of the war 
are largely the product of the economic ener- 
gies which this line of action enabled them to 
store up during the years of peace and prepara- 
tion." 1 

Similar methods were employed in Turkey, 
the Deutsche Bank being the directing genius 

1 England and Germany, by Doctor E. J. Dillon, pp. 12-14. 



130 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of the operations. An English writer describes 
the methods employed in this part of Europe: 

"The Pan-German plan for the creation of 
a great world-power he says, dominating not 
only Central and South-Eastern Europe, but 
controlling practically the whole of Africa, 
the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and large por- 
tions of the Far East, with a considerable part 
of South America, has been founded upon very 
exact knowledge acquired by means of an in- 
tense application devoted during twenty-five 
years to every political, ethnographic, eco- 
nomic, social, military, and naval problem, 
affecting the interests of practically every 
country in the world. This work has been 
carried on and perfected either by the agents 
of the powerful and ubiquitous Pan-German 
League and other similar societies, or by agents 
of the secret service, which during recent years 
has undergone a remarkable development. 

"Each agent in his own sphere fitted into 
the mosaic of the Germanic investigation. 
There has been a regular hierarchy of trained 
investigators and reporters carrying their mes- 
sages to the fatherland and influencing, in many 
obscure but useful directions, the policy and 
political life of foreign countries. . . . The 
reports of these numerous agents have been 
forwarded to the Great General Staff at the 
Wilhelmstrasse, the operations of which have 
always been directed so as to correspond as 
much to political as to military necessities; 



ECONOMIC COXQUEST OF EUROPE 131 

and to the cabinet of the German Emperor, 
who has not scrupled to gather the threads of 
this enormous activity into his own hands." l 

The French authority on the Bagdad Rail- 
way, M. Andre Cheradame, writing in 1903, 
eleven years before the outbreak of the war, 

says: 

"Favored in a thousand ways, the Germans 
in Turkey are increasing. Their colony at 
Constantinople has its clubs, its journals, its 
schools. From the Turkish point of view this 
exceptional position, which the Sultan has 
given to the Germans in his empire, presents 
evidently serious dangers. The more they 
occupy Turkish territory the more the Ger- 
mans experience a desire to possess it by a 
definite agreement. Their tendency is more 
and more to regard the Ottoman country as 
their personal property/' 2 

An enumeration of the concessions which 
Germany had secured indicates how completely 
the economic and industrial life of Turkey 
was in German hands. From it we get an idea 
of the thoroughness of German imperialism. 
Only the more important concessions can be 
enumerated. They included: 

1 The German Road to the East, Evaos Lcwin, p. 6. 
* La Macedeine, le chimin de jtr dc Bagdad, p. 12. 



132 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

One. Banking control through the Deutsche 
Bank and its subsidiaries. This was true not 
only of Turkey proper but of Asia Minor. 
Even the revenues of Turkey were pledged 
to the Bagdad Railway. 

Two. Transportation control of European 
and Asiatic Turkey. This included the rivers 
of Mesopotamia. Almost the entire trans- 
portation system of the Turkish Empire was 
to be under German control, although Eng- 
land enjoyed steamboat concessions on the 
Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, while France had 
valuable railroad concessions in Syria and 
Palestine. 

Three. Possession of the coal, oil, and 
timber concessions as well as great stretches 
of land for the growing of wheat and cotton 
and other raw materials. 

Four. Docks, wharves, harbors, and ware- 
houses on the sea and rivers. These controlled 
the harbors on the Mediterranean. The 
western terminus of the railroad was on the 
Bosporus at Constantinople, one of the most 
strategic harbors in the world, and if properly 
developed one of the most profitable. 

There is little left of a country when all of 



ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF EUROPE 133 

these agencies are in outside hands, for the 
railways, banking, and water transportation 
control a nation's life. They control agricul- 
ture, trade, and commerce. The farmer can 
only live on such terms as these agencies see 
fit to grant. Through control of the banks, 
industry, trade, and commerce can be en- 
couraged or killed. Those races which Turkey 
or Germany desired to destroy could be de- 
stroyed (and Turkey is a mixture of races 
many of which she seeks to exterminate). They 
can be driven from the country or made to 
work in the mines and the fields. Turkey had 
already done everything in her power to de- 
stroy the Christian nationalities, the Arme- 
nians, Syrians, and Greeks, because of their 
economic superiority. They constituted a 
quarter of the population of the empire. Mer- 
chants by the thousands were bankrupted, 
and these parts of Turkey reduced almost to 
ruin. But economic subjection and very often 
slavery is one of the consequences of imperial- 
ism and the control of the economic life of a 
weak state by a strong one. This is what hap- 
pened to Mexico. The land was taken from 
the people who were made to work in the mines 



134 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

and plantations of foreign concessionaires. 
This is what happened to a great part of South 
Africa, to East and West Africa by conces- 
sionaires of the European Powers. 

Nothing better indicates the extent to which 
economic forces have superseded the old dyn- 
astic and military forces in international re- 
lations than a study of German economic ex- 
pansion; nothing shows how completely the 
counting-room has become the agency of in- 
ternational power as well as the activities 
of bankers, railroad builders, and traders in 
the Balkans, Turkey, and Russia. There was 
but little need of military conquest. A state 
can lose its sovereignty almost as completely 
through economic penetration as through actual 
conquest. Italy was fast becoming a vassal 
state to Berlin through control of her banking 
institutions, which in turn controlled the water 
power, steamships, iron and steel industries. 
Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and even France 
were falling under the same subtle influences. 
Roumania had become subject to Germany as 
had Bulgaria. Russia was in economic servi- 
tude through German control of the chief in- 
dustrial activities of the country, while the 



ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF EUROPE 155 

great German trusts working in harmony with 
the powerful German banks were rapidly ac- 
quiring not only industrial but political power 
in the capitals of South America as well. 

That there will be a revival of economic na- 
tionalism after the war there is no doubt. 
The Allied countries may exclude German eco- 
nomic agencies. There may be tariff wars and 
discriminations and laws excluding foreign 
bankers and traders from the Allied and Cen- 
tral Powers. But it is doubtful if economic in- 
ternationalism can be checked. Certainly it 
ought not to be checked if it can be permitted 
without the loss of the essence of sovereignty 
which it has been one of the objects of German 
economic activity to destroy. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 

For thousands of years Mesopotamia was 
the centre of the world. Here modern history 
had its beginnings. Here jurisprudence had 
its origin. Here poetry, art, philosophy, and 
science flourished for centuries. Here was the 
original home of the Jews. The influence of 
Mesopotamia was felt from Siberia to Africa, 
and from India to the Atlantic Ocean. There 
were great cities — Babylon, Nineveh, Damas- 
cus, Jerusalem, and Bagdad. The country 
was rich. It produced crops in abundance. 
It was the highway of antiquity and the clear- 
ing-house of trade as well. 

Herodotus speaks of the riches of Babylonia 
in the fifth century before Christ: 

"This," he says, "is the best demonstration 
I can give of the wealth of the Babylonians. 
The king [of Persia] is maintained for four 
months out of the twelve by Babylonia, and 
for the remaining eight by the rest of Asia to- 

136 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 137 

gether; so that in wealth the Assyrian province 
is equivalent to a third of all Asia." * 

To-day this part of the world is for the most 
part desert waste. It produces but scanty 
crops. Yet Herodotus describes it as an in- 
tensively cultivated region. He says: 

"The land has little rain, and this nourishes 
the corn at the root; but the crops are matured 
and brought to harvest by water from the 
river — not, as in Egypt, by the river flooding 
over the field, but by human labor and 
'shadufs.' For Babylonia, like Egypt, is one 
network of canals, the largest of which is navig- 
able. ... It is far the best corn land of all 
the countries I know. There is no attempt 
at arboriculture — figs or vines or olives — but 
it is such superb corn land that the average 
yield is two hundredfold, and three hundred- 
fold in the best years. The wheat and barley 
there are a good four inches broad in the blade 
and millet and sesame grow as big as trees — 
but I will not state the dimensions I have as- 
certained, because I know that, for any one 
who has not visited Babylonia and witnessed 
these facts about the crops for himself, they 
would be altogether beyond belief." 2 

According to Herodotus, the walls about 
Babylon were 300 feet high and 75 feet broad. 

1 Bk. I, chap. 192. 2 Idem, chap. 193. 



138 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

They were 58 miles in circumference. Houses 
were three and four stories high. Streets were 
broad and spacious. For centuries after Christ 
the irrigated lands maintained a dense popula- 
tion. Even as late as the seventh century 
A. D. there were 12,000,000 acres of land under 
cultivation, and a total population in town 
and country of more than 5,000,000 people. 

Mesopotamia lies between two great water- 
ways, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and 
extends from the mountains of Armenia to 
Bagdad, and thence south to the Persian Gulf. 
It is the natural gateway between Asia and 
Europe. Nation after nation struggled for 
its control. It was possessed by the Assyrians, 
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, 
and Turks. Conqueror after conqueror sought 
for this part of the world, and to-day the ruins 
of palaces and cities suggest the wealth and 
power of the Mesopotamia valleys. It was 
here that Haroun-al-Raschid in the ninth cen- 
tury A. D. made Bagdad the centre of his 
empire, and attracted to it the art and learn- 
ing of the world. Bagdad was for generations 
a highly developed city. It contained a popu- 
lation of 2,000,000 people. 



TUE DREAM OF EMPIRE 130 

From the beginning of history the world 
has been at war for the control of Mesopotamia 
and the trade routes to India. Cyrus the Per- 
sian was lured to the conquest of this territory. 
It was from Mesopotamia that Darius crossed 
over Asia Minor, and bridged the Hellespont, 
only to be defeated by the Greeks at Mara- 
thon. His son, Xerxes, it is said, organized 
an army of 5,000,000 men for the conquest 
of Greece. He, too, crossed the Dardanelles 
and fought the Greeks at Thermopylae. He 
destroyed Athens and only returned to Asia 
after the defeat of his fleet at Salamis. Greece 
could not resist the lure of Mesopotamia. Alex- 
ander the Great defeated the Persians and 
penetrated as far as India. On his return he 
selected the heart of Mesopotamia as the cap- 
ital of his empire. Mark Antony, at the height 
of his power, led the legions of Rome into the 
heart of Assyria, but was defeated by the Par- 
thians. For four centuries Rome was at war 
with the world. Trajan penetrated down the 
Euphrates valley to the head of the Persian Gulf. 
Aurelian defeated the Parthians, and Queen 
Zenobia was captured on the banks of the Eu- 
phrates and taken in triumph to Rome. Finally, 



140 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the ascendancy of Rome was acknowledged in 
this part of the world. 

For centuries Rome maintained her power 
over western Asia. Then came the incursion of 
the barbarians. The dark ages followed. The 
capital of the world was moved to Constan- 
tinople. In the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies the Italian cities rose to power. They 
took up the trade with the East. They strug- 
gled for its control. They kept open the trade 
routes until the Ottomans in the fifteenth 
century ended the order which had been main- 
tained for thousands of years, and left the 
caravans a prey to brigands and robbers. Then 
the dream of Oriental empire passed from the 
ambitions of men. It was awakened again 
by Napoleon, who transported his troops to 
Egypt. He, too, contemplated dominion ovef 
this vast territory, and with it control of the 
trade routes to the East. 

Now, in the twentieth century, romantic, 
historial writers have visualized a Teutonic 
empire which would include this vast terri- 
tory. These writers exalt the Kaiser as the 
legal and legitimate successor of Caesar, whose 
Germanized title he bears. They assert that 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 141 

the German Empire is the inheritor of all the 
rights, titles, and dignities of the Holy Roman 
Empire which dominated the imagination of 
Europe from the time of Charlemagne down 
to the nineteenth century. The empire of 
which they dream is the empire of Rome at 
the height of its greatest power, when the 
Roman eagles had been carried from the forests 
of Germany as far east as the Persian Gulf. 
It was to be an empire washed by the North 
Sea and the Baltic, the Mediterranean and 
the Indian Ocean. It was to begin at Ham- 
burg and extend to the Persian Gulf. It was 
an empire of substantially the same territorial 
limits as the empire of Rome in the time of 
Trajan. It included Germany, Austria-Hun- 
gary, Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Roumania 
in Europe, and Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, 
and Mesopotamia in western Asia. Italy and 
Greece, Holland, Denmark, and Belgium were 
to be under German influence. They fell with- 
in the Teutonic orbit. The population of these 
combined states was in excess of 200,000,000. 
The subject states alone contained 130,000,000 
people. This great empire was to be under 
the political and economic dominion of Ger- 



142 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

many. Germany in turn was to be under the 
dominion of Prussia, and Prussia was to be 
ruled by the Kaiser and the Junker class. This 
is the dream of Mitteleuropa, with its depen- 
dencies extending to the Persian Gulf. 

The Pan-Germans who dreamed of such an 
empire may be relatively few in number. And 
they possibly do not represent the German 
people. However, as under the constitution 
of Germany the Kaiser and the military -Junker- 
commercial classes are the government, it 
makes little difference what the great ma- 
jority of the people think. And the Prussian 
aristocracy believes in its class. It frankly 
avows Machtpolitik. It has a contempt for 
democracy and for the idea of permanent peace. 
It is opposed to disarmament for with disarma- 
ment the war caste would have nothing to do. 

Along with the Junkers are the big indus- 
trial groups which are the imperialistic classes 
of Germany. They, like the Junkers, have no 
respect for the little state. It has no place in 
the world. And the sooner all of the smaller 
states are absorbed in their natural spheres 
of influence the better for everybody con- 
cerned. Neither Holland, Switzerland, nor Den- 



THE DREAM OF EMPIRE 143 

mark, nor any of the Balkan states, have any 
right to separate existence. They should all 
pass into the orbit of Germany because of 
economic, racial or political necessity. How- 
ever, these classes accept a similar destiny 
for the lesser nations within the influence of 
the other Powers, of which they recognized 
but three, Great Britain, the United States, 
and Russia. All other nations, all other peoples, 
white, yellow, and black, fell within the in- 
evitable control, and proper control, of the 
four great empires among which the world is 
to be ultimately divided. This at least is the 
conception of the organization of the world 
held by many Pan-German publicists. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ECONOMIC MENACE TO THE 
BRITISH EMPIRE 

In its conception and possibilities the Ger- 
man project for a trans-European-Asiatic rail- 
way was one of the most stupendous under- 
takings of history. It was comparable to the 
military operations of the General Staff. Po- 
tentially, at least, it was a drive at the heart 
of the British Empire. It involved its exist- 
ence — political, industrial, financial. It meant 
planting the outposts of the Kaiser at the 
strategic centre of England's possessions. Few 
Englishmen saw it as such, and the average 
German probably thought of it only as an in- 
dustrial venture demanded by the expanding 
needs of his country. Such men as Sir Harry 
Johnson, one of the best-informed Englishmen 
on the Near-Eastern question, openly urged 
that Germany be given a freer hand in the 
Near East, and England and Turkey and Ger- 
many reached an understanding on the sub- 

144 



MENACE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 145 

ject in 1914. But the menace to England was 
none the less portentous. And with the wide 
expansion of imperialistic interests a mere 
menace to some vulnerable point is almost 
equivalent to a breach of friendly relations, 
as the Fashoda and Morocco incidents in- 
dicated. Nations with far-flung empires are 
very vulnerable. When the economic interests 
of nations are in constant conflict international 
irritations are inevitable. 

(1) In the first place, the United Kingdom 
was endangered by German ascendancy in the 
Near East. England is fed by her colonies. 
Her industries are supplied with raw materials 
from all over the world. Cotton, wool, wheat, 
and meat come from Australia, New Zealand, 
India, and Egypt. With food and raw ma- 
terials cut off England might be driven into 
submission, while her industries could be 
ruined. For England is far more dependent 
than is Germany upon the outside world. Her 
mills and factories, which directly or indirectly 
employ more than half of her people, might 
be closed and the entire industrial structure 
of England be undermined if the Mediterranean 
were held by a hostile Power. 



146 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

(2) British investments in Egypt, Eastern 
Africa, Australia, India, and the Far East 
amount to at least $6,000,000,000. 1 This rep- 
resents government loans, investments in rail- 
roads, docks, mines, oil, plantations, and 
development work of all kinds. England is 
the great creditor nation of the world. Her 
overseas investments in 191 3 amounted to 
#20,ooo,ooo,ooo, 2 or more than the foreign 
investments of the rest of the world combined. 
And the investing classes of England come 
from the old aristocracy, which owns the land, 
the mines, the railroads, shipping, and the 
other financial interests of the kingdom. This 
investing class is powerful politically. It con- 
trols the House of Lords. It controls the Con- 
servative party. It moulds the policies of the 
Foreign Office and the diplomatic service. 

(3) Great Britain controls a great part of 
the carrying trade of the world, and British 
mercantile supremacy was menaced by German 
ascendancy in the Mediterranean. Fifty years 
ago England feared French control of the Suez 
Canal. That was one reason for its purchase. 

1 Edgar Crammond, Quarterly Review, October, 1914. 

2 Idem. 



MENACE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 147 

And German control of the eastern Mediter- 
ranean and Egypt would place British shipping 
passing through the Suez Canal under the 
possibility of differential tariffs or other re- 
strictions. Even without military action the 
British flag could be driven from the eastern 
seas by German control of the Suez Canal. 

British shipping interests and the profits of 
the carrying trade were also menaced by the 
trade route overland to the East. The Bagdad 
Railway was to be an integral part of the mar- 
vellously organized German railway system 
from the centre of Europe to the Persian Gulf. 
It would connect with Hamburg, Berlin, Essen, 
and the lower Rhine region; it would pass 
through Austria-Hungary, the Balkan states, 
Turkey, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. It 
would place western Asia and Persia in direct 
railway connection with German industry. It 
would enable German merchants to place their 
wares in Africa and the Far East in much less 
time than England could transport them by 
water. The Bagdad Railway would do to 
shipping what the trans-Pacific railways did 
to water transportation around Cape Horn. 
It would shorten it by man}' days. It would 



148 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

substitute carnage by rail for carriage by water. 
Thus the Bagdad Railway threatened billions 
of British investments in shipping. 

England's shipping amounted to 21,000,000 
gross tons in 191 3, or about 40 per cent, of 
the ocean tonnage of the world. A great part 
of this is employed in Oriental trade. Two- 
thirds of the tonnage passing through the Suez 
Canal is of British registry. Thus the Bagdad 
Railway was a maritime as well as a financial 
drive at the British Empire. And when we 
consider the extent to which German shipping 
had increased in recent years, and the inroads 
already made on what Great Britain considered 
her rightful monopoly of the seas, we can under- 
stand that the ship-owners of England, always 
alert to their interests, were alarmed at the 
prospect. 

No nation has made use of its railways for 
the development of commerce as has Ger- 
many. It has been the greatest single agency 
of German industry. Special rates are made 
to encourage foreign trade. Through tariffs 
are provided. Materials and supplies are carried 
below cost to develop industries or communi- 
ties. The railways are closely linked with 



MENACE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 149 

the German merchant marine. They are 
operated as a unit. Transportation in Ger- 
many is an engine of industrial development 
just as it is of military power. And un- 
doubtedly similar methods would be applied 
to the promotion of German trade in Turkey, 
Asia Minor, and the Near East, and for the 
undermining of competing nations in the Far 
East as well. 

(4) London is the financial centre of the 
world. England acquired financial supremacy 
from the Netherland states during the Napo- 
leonic wars. Her financial power was increased 
by her shipping and overseas trade. And she 
has guarded this supremacy most zealously. 
Free trade increased her economic power, for 
free trade made England the natural clearing- 
house for the shipping of every country, and 
the market-place to which the wealth of every 
clime could be brought for exchange. In her 
harbors goods are warehoused or transshipped 
to other countries without the payment of 
tariffs. The financial supremacy of Great 
Britain is closely related to and dependent 
upon the control of commerce and shipping. 
British exports and imports passing through 



150 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the Mediterranean in 1916 amounted to 
$1,650,000,000. This was carried almost ex- 
clusively in British ships. It was cleared 
through British banks. It was handled al- 
most wholly by British merchants. It was 
produced almost wholly by British labor. 

Here again the Bagdad Railway touched 
the nerve-centre of England. And no other 
activity . is as responsive to economic change 
as is banking and finance. British banks have 
connections all over the world. These con- 
nections reflect every change, no matter how 
obscure it may be. The banks form a report- 
ing agency like a world-wide seismograph 
which records the slightest vibrations of the 
world. Such is Lombard Street. It is the 
nerve-centre of the commercial world. 

This, too, was threatened by a land route 
from Hamburg to the Orient. The dislocation 
of shipping from water to rail, the bringing 
of the trade of the Orient to Germany, the 
possibility of developing Constantinople as a 
great port, meant that Berlin might become 
a great financial clearing-house; and Hamburg 
and Constantinople, working in that close 
scientific relationship that characterizes Ger- 



MENACE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 151 

man economic operations, might supplant 
London as a financial centre. If carried far 
enough, England's financial power might pass 
to Germany, just as in earlier centuries it passed 
from northern Italy to south Germany, thence 
to the Hanseaticcities and the Netherlands. 

The opening up of a new transportation 
route by land, the substitution of rail for water 
transportation, the development of German 
ports in the Mediterranean threatened the 
economic and financial power which has come 
to England as a result of her long, almost un- 
challenged monopoly of the industry and the 
carrying trade of the world. And the bankers 
and the financiers of Great Britain form part 
of the ruling classes. As stated before, they 
are as sensitive to every economic change as 
is the nervous system of the human body. 

(5) British industry was also threatened by 
the Bagdad Railway. A land route to the 
East was an industrial peril. During the years 
which preceded the war German foreign trade 
was advancing by leaps and bounds. In 1914 
it had almost reached the total of British trade. 
In that year the foreign commerce of Great 
Britain was $5,021,655,000; while that of 



152 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Germany was $4,966,660,000. And the press 
of both countries as well as the jingo writers 
had been urging these facts on the attention 
of the people. "Made in Germany " had be- 
come a British nightmare. It had alarmed 
the manufacturers just as the increase in Ger- 
man tonnage had disturbed the shipping 
interests. The Bagdad Railway and its ad- 
vantages to German industry was a further 
menace to the industrial structure of Great 
Britain. 

For three generations Great Britain had 
enjoyed something like a monopoly in iron 
and steel, in wool and cotton, in machines 
and cutlery. The fact that four-fifths of her 
people live in towns and cities indicates how 
exclusively industrial she is. The Bagdad 
Railway would bring the products of Germany 
to the 110,000,000 people about the Mediter- 
ranean, as well as the hundreds of other mil- 
lions of the Far East, in far less time than the 
output of the mills of Manchester, Leeds, and 
Sheffield could reach them. It was an express 
service. It would enable German business 
men with the most skilful agents in the world 
at their command to place their products in 



MENACE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 153 

the Far East — in India, China, East Africa, 
and the Pacific islands much more quickly 
than they could be brought by sea. 

(6) In addition the British colonial service, 
which offers opportunities for the younger 
sons of the aristocracy in Egypt, India, Africa, 
and elsewhere, was in jeopardy, as were the 
tens of thousands of young men who annually 
leave the mother country to enter the foreign 
service. 

The economic life of the British Empire is 
involved in the protection of the supremacy 
which has been built up in shipping, in indus- 
try, in overseas trade, in finance, and in the 
handling of the wealth of the outside world. 
And just as the Junkers, the business classes, 
the Foreign Office, and the press of Germany 
were united in a demand for expansion, so the 
same interests in Great Britain were menaced 
or thought they were menaced by the German 
drive to the East. That is why the Bagdad 
Railway was so portentous. That is why the 
control of the Mediterranean forms the key- 
stone of one empire and the imperialistic dream 
of another. 



CHAPTER XV 
DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 

There was almost continuous controversy 
between the Powers over the Bagdad Rail- 
way. The controversies began with the sign- 
ing of the railroad concessions in 1903, and 
only came to an end in June 1914, just before 
the declaration of war, when the Powers 
reached an agreement as to their respective 
rights and spheres of influence. 

Four methods were employed by the Allied 
Powers to protect their interests in this part 
of the world. They were: 

One. Efforts to prevent the financing of the 
road. 

Two. Diplomatic intervention with Turkey. 

Three. Attempts to have the railway in- 
ternationalized under the joint control of all 
the Powers. 

Four. Division of western Asia into spheres 
of influence. 

Under the terms of the grant the Bagdad 
Railway was to be Turkish in name, but the 
company was proclaimed to be international. 

*54 



DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 155 

It was to be managed by a board of twenty- 
seven directors, of whom eight w T ere to be 
French, four Turks, and eleven Germans. 
Great Britain and Russia were to have no 
voice in its affairs. The remaining four direc- 
tors were sleeping partners. But the inter- 
national character of the road was merely a 
blind. Germany had to secure capital from 
other countries with which to build the road, 
for Germany had but little surplus capital, 
and foreign capital was invited into the road 
from the very first, although German control 
was always insisted on. The profits were enor- 
mous. They were estimated as high as 40 per 
cent, to the underwriters and promoters. 

France was the financial reservoir to which 
Germany looked for aid. Next to Great Brit- 
ain, France is the creditor nation of the world. 
And the Paris bankers were willing to share in 
the undertaking. But the French Govern- 
ment was hostile to the enterprise. It meant 
financial dominance by German interests where 
France had always enjoyed favored rights. 
Moreover, Russia was opposed to French aid 
to the enterprise, while French financiers had 
railroad and banking rights in Syria and Pales- 



156 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

tine, and desired to retain their privileges in 
the development of the territory. Great Brit- 
ain, too, was vitally interested in preventing 
the building of the road. And France and 
Great Britain were drawing closer together 
during these years. 

The Allied Powers strove first to have the 
road internationalized by placing its adminis- 
tration in the hands of representatives of all 
the Powers. Delcasse insisted in the Chamber 
of Deputies in March, 1902, that "the French 
element in the construction, exploitation, and 
management of the enterprise shall be given 
a share absolutely equal to that of the most 
favored foreign element, and the Russian ele- 
ment shall have full power to enter the defini- 
tive company which is to be formed." British 
statesmen made similar demands. In March, 
1902, Lord Lansdowne announced: "We can- 
not view the enterprise with a favorable eye 
unless English interests and English capital 
are placed upon a footing of equality with 
the interests and capital of the most favored 



1 A. Geraud, "A New German Empire," Nineteenth Century , 
May, 1914. 



DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 157 

These were frank admissions that the diplo- 
macy of the two countries was interested in 
the activities of their respective financiers, for 
both Delcasse and Lansdowne insisted on a 
share in the undertaking equal to that of Ger- 
many. It is quite possible too, that at this 
time, when the road was in its early stages, 
the project was viewed largely as an economic 
rather than a military project. 1 

At any rate Germany refused to interna- 
tionalize the railroad or to admit England 
and France into the project on equal terms. 
She insisted on control. By way of protection 
Great Britain and France undertook to create 
a "vacuum of capital" around the enterprise, 
a plan which offered assurance of success by 
reason of the financial weakness of Germany. 
It was believed that the enterprise would fail 
if a financial boycott could be applied, and 
that Germany would in time admit England 
and France to equal shares in the undertaking. 
To this end the French Government refused 
to permit the shares of the railroad to be listed 

1 As to the attitude of the English Government toward the 
Bagdad Railway in its earlier stages, see Quarterly Review, 
October, 191 7. 



158 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

on the Bourse, the stock exchange in France 
being under government control, and the shares 
and securities that can be listed for sale being 
subject to approval by the state. 

The opposition of the Powers delayed the 
building of the road. Germany then urged 
Turkey to improve her finances so that her 
guarantees would give greater value to the 
securities. Turkey had underwritten the in- 
terest on the bonds on the railroad at the rate 
of 15,500 francs per kilometre. Her total 
annual obligations, when the road was com- 
pleted, according to estimates made in 1914, 
would have amounted to 35,000,000 francs. 
In 1906 Turkey requested permission of the 
Powers to increase her tariff duties in order to 
secure increased revenues, but the allied na- 
tions refused to sanction the increase unless 
the new revenues were used for reforms in 
Macedonia. This would not aid Germany, 
but she had to acquiesce, partly because she 
did not desire to place any difficulties in the 
way of Turkey, and partly because she felt 
that the Porte would be able to raise money 
for the guarantees in some other way. This 
still further delayed the building of the road. 



DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 159 

All the time, however, the road was progress- 
ing slowly. A section was opened to traffic 
in 1904. In 1909 work on the main line was 
continued. The railway was being pushed 
slowly toward the East despite the obstacles 
placed in its pathway. And as the road ad- 
vanced across Asia Minor the Allied Powers 
became more disturbed. The significance of 
the enterprise became more apparent as Ger- 
many grew in industrial power. For these 
were years of rapid economic development. 
Up to about 1900 Germany had been looked 
upon as a negligible factor in shipping, foreign 
trade, and international finance. Moreover, 
England and Germany seemed on the point 
of reaching an understanding during these 
years, and both countries were inclined to see 
a possible rapprochement brought about. But 
the cessation of suspicion was short-lived. 

The struggle over the railway assumed other 
forms. Russia, France, and England en- 
deavored to secure railroad concessions in 
Turkey for themselves that would "compen- 
sate" for German grants. Great Britain sought 
concessions for a line from Adana along the 
Gulf of Alexandretta. This would have been 



160 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

a profitable venture. It would also have pro- 
tected Cyprus, and weakened the German 
control of the northeastern corner of the Med- 
iterranean. This concession, however, Turkey 
refused to make. England also sought per- 
mission to build a line into Persia through the 
southern portion of Asiatic Turkey, with the 
aim of obtaining a foothold in this region which 
would increase her power in Persia. It would 
also compensate her for any loss in power in 
the lower Mesopotamia region. She also en- 
couraged the building of a road by Russia in 
the northeastern portion of Asia Minor near 
by the Russian frontier as well as from Teheran, 
Persia, to Khanikin, on the border, which was 
the Persian terminus of one of the branch lines 
covered by the Bagdad Railway grants. 

France sought to consolidate her rights in 
Syria. 

But the strategic problem of all others to 
Great Britain was the last section of the rail- 
way running from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf. 
A glance at the map will suggest the importance 
of this section of the road. It was the eastern 
outlet of the "Bridge to the Orient." It was 
the gateway to the Indian Ocean and beyond. 



DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 161 

It was the avenue of approach not only to India 
but to Australia and the British possessions in 
China and East Africa. Once the railroad 
was completed to the Persian Gulf the "Orien- 
tal Express" would be able to plant helmeted 
soldiers from Berlin on the frontiers of the 
British Empire in far less time than they could 
be carried by water through the Suez Canal. 
Military as well as industrial considerations 
demanded that his strategic point should not 
fall under German control. It was an ever- 
frowning menace to the British Empire. 

Efforts were first made to place this eastern 
section of the road under international con- 
trol. To this Germany would not accede. It 
was the terminus of her railroad, much as San 
Francisco is the terminus of the Pacific rail- 
roads. Diplomacy having failed, Great Brit- 
ain adopted o'ther methods. In 1899 a rep- 
resentative of the British Government, Colonel 
Meade, called upon the Sheik of Koweit, and 
made a secret treaty with him. The treaty 
assured the Sheik perpetual protection "if he 
would make no cession of territory without 
the knowledge and consent of the British Gov- 
ernment." Under this agreement the Sheik 



1 62 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

disavowed allegiance to Turkey and accepted 
British protection. 

Germany immediately opened negotiations 
with the Sheik to secure a concession for the 
harbor as a terminus for the railroad. But 
the German commission arrived too late. 
Great Britain had already occupied the most 
available outlet on the Persian Gulf. The 
Sultan of Turkey attempted to assert dominion 
over Koweit on the ground that it was Ottoman 
territory. A Turkish war-ship appeared in the 
harbor in 1901 to compel the Sheik to recognize 
Turkish authority. But British war-ships were 
in the harbor, and upheld the sovereignty of 
the Sheik and the protectorate of Great Britain 
over the territory. 

The British Foreign Office notified the Ger- 
man Government that the railroad could not 
be extended to the Persian Gulf unless the 
last section were internationalized, and one- 
half of the control placed in British hands. 
This was also objectionable to Germany. Eng- 
land's protectorate over Koweit was not recog- 
nized by Germany until 191 3, but it was an 
established fact for some years prior to that 
time. Its occupation closed the eastern outlet 



DIPLOMATIC COXTROVERSIES 163 

of the Bagdad Railway, for it gave Great Brit- 
ain control of its terminus at the sea. 

All of these controversies over the railway 
were adjusted just before the outbreak of the 
war. Agreements were reached which made 
it possible for railroad construction to proceed. 
Russia acquiesced in German control of the 
railway by an agreement signed at Potsdam 
in 191 1, when Russia agreed not "to oppose 
the Bagdad Railway." Great Britain and 
France reached a similar understanding with 
Turkey and Germany in 1914. By the terms 
of these agreements, which indicate again the 
extent to which financial considerations in- 
fluence the diplomacy of nations, French in- 
vestors were granted the right to build railways 
in Syria and along the Black Sea coast. This 
was to be the French sphere of action in Asia. 
In return France waived her objections to the 
railroad, and agreed to support the issue of a 
Turkish loan of 700,000,000 francs in France, 
and to consent, if the other Powers agreed to 
it, to a 4 per cent, increase in the customs taxes 
of Turkey, and an income tax upon resident 
foreigners. 

A similar understanding was reached be- 



164 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

tween Great Britain, Turkey, and Germany. 
Turkish representatives came to London in 
1 914 for a conference with the British Foreign 
Office. The main purpose was to remove ob- 
jections to the increase in Turkish customs 
duties, and to make it possible for the railway 
to be carried as far as Basra, the eastern 
terminus, not far from the Persian Gulf. The 
British Foreign Office met the representatives 
of Turkey in a generous spirit, and as a result 
of the negotiations the Porte recognized the 
validity of the agreement between the Sheik 
and the British Government over Koweit, 
and agreed not to interfere with the internal 
affairs of that province. Great Britain was 
authorized to provide for the policing of the 
Persian Gulf and two British directors were 
agreed to for the Bagdad Railway as a com- 
mercial guarantee against discriminatory treat- 
ment. The right of navigation on the rivers 
beyond Bagdad was recognized as a British 
interest which she had enjoyed for two genera- 
tions. Very valuable oil-fields exist in the 
delta of the Euphrates which were left in the 
hands of British capitalists. The rights of 
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company were also 



DIPLOMATIC COXTROVERSIES 165 

recognized. In return Great Britain recognized 
the suzerainty of the Porte over Koweit, and 
also agreed to the construction of the last sec- 
tion of the railway as far as Basra which gave 
Germany an outlet on the river but a short 
distance from the Persian Gulf. 1 

Similar negotiations were had with Ger- 
many, and an agreement was reached by the 
representatives of the two Powers in Berlin. 

"These negotiations," says a writer in the 
Quarterly Review, " which began in May, 191 3, 
reached a conclusion in June, 1914. The sub- 
stance of the arrangements arrived at was 
as follows: Great Britain undertook not to 
oppose the Bagdad Railway system, which 
was carefully defined. Germany undertook 
not to oppose British control of the navigation 
of Mesopotamia rivers. Germany and Great 
Britain both undertook to use their best en- 
deavors to secure the due execution of an 
arrangement between the Bagdad Railway 
Company and the Porte providing that the 
terminus of the line should be at Basra, that 

1 Ths German Road to the East, Evans Lcwin, p. 72. For an 
exhaustive discussion of the negotiations between England, 
Turkey, and Germany over the completion of the Bagdad Railway 
see Quarterly Rciieu,', October, 19 1 7, p. 516. 



166 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

there should be two British directors on the 
Bagdad Railway, and that the construction 
and exploitation of ports at Bagdad and Basra 
should be carried out by a separate company. 
British interests were to have a 40 per cent, 
participation in this company. Both govern- 
ments undertook to prevent any discrimina- 
tion in treatment on the railways or waterways 
of Asiatic Turkey. The German Government 
bound themselves in no circumstances, except 
by agreement with Great Britain, to support 
the establishment of any port or railway ter- 
minus on the Persian Gulf. They also recog- 
nized by agreeing to the levy, by the proposed 
riverain commission, of dues on German ships, 
the special position of Great Britain on the 
Shatt-el-Arab. The British Government bound 
themselves not to support the establishment 
of any railway in direct competition with the 
Bagdad Railway. A line from Egypt to the 
Gulf, and lines as feeders for the river naviga- 
tion, were expressly stated not to be in direct 
competition. 1 

In June, 1914, six weeks before the declara- 

1 "The Bagdad Railway Negotiations," Quarterly Review, 
October, 1917, p. 522. 



DIPLOMATIC CONTROVERSIES 167 

tion of war, it was announced in the British 
press that a satisfactory settlement had been 
attained. The press announcements from 
Berlin stated: "A complete understanding 
has been reached on all points at issue. The 
agreement will not come into force until after 
the conclusion of the negotiations with Turkey. 
The contents of the agreement can, therefore, 
not be 'divulged at present." On June 29 Sir 
Edward Grey announced: "We have made 
various agreements with Turkey; we have 
made agreements also with Germany sepa- 
rately on the Bagdad Railway, and some kin- 
dred matters." ! 

Construction work on the railroad had been 
progressing slowly during these years. The 
removal of the objections of the Powers, and 
especially the aid tendered by France in the 
form of a loan, enabled the work to proceed 
more rapidly. Work on all the sections from 
Adana to Bagdad was carried on simultaneously 
and it was expected that through trains would 
be running from Berlin to Bagdad in 1917. 

1 The German Road to the East, Evans Lewin, p. 73; see also 
' :Us to Peace, S. S. McClure, p. 41; and Quarterly Review 
(London), October, 19 17. 



CHAPTER XVI 
WHY THE WAR CAME WHEN IT DID 

The Morocco incident of 191 1, the partition 
of Persia in 191 2, and the conventions of the 
Powers over the Bagdad Railway in 1914 were 
the closing acts in the long struggle for the 
Mediterranean which had been going on for 
a century. Under the several agreements of 
the Powers, reviewed in a previous chapter, 
Germany recognized British rights on the 
Persian Gulf, and Great Britain recognized 
German rights in Mesopotamia. Egypt was 
secure and Germany had acquired ascendancy 
in Turkey and Asia Minor. Germany seemed 
to have achieved the ends for which she had 
been striving for more than thirty years, while 
Great Britain controlled the sea route to the 
Orient and the means of protection to her Far- 
Eastern empire. 

Such was the status of the long struggle 
for the control of the Mediterranean at the 

outbreak of the war. Possibly the settlement 

168 



WHY THE WAR CAME 169 

was merely a blind for the war; possibly it 
was the immediate cause of the war, for the 
German route to the East was still far from 
free from interruptions. German dominion of 
western Asia and Mesopotamia was still shared 
with England and France. The route to India 
and the approaches to Egypt and the Suez 
Canal were still blocked by British control 
of the Persian Gulf on the one hand, and the 
land approaches, by way of Palestine, on the 
other. And Egypt was a frankly expressed Ger- 
man objective. To the Pan-Germans Egypt 
is the " spinal cord," the connecting link of 
the British Empire. With it in German hands 
the British Empire would be split asunder, 
while the whole of East Africa and the Cape-to- 
Cairo connections would be German menaced. 
Persia would be open to easy conquest, and 
the rich oil-lands of Persia and Mesopotamia 
would fall into German hands. Thirty years 
of industrious penetration by scientists, traders, 
financiers, and military experts had failed in 
its object. For the Berlin-Bagdad project 
was still forty miles from the head of the Per- 
sian Gulf. 1 

1 For terras of agreement as to Mesopotamia, see Chapter XIV. 



170 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Far more important, Serbia still lay athwart 
the railway from Austria-Hungary to Turkey, 
and Serbia had greatly increased her power as 
a result of the second Balkan War of 191 2. 
She had added to her territories, and was reach- 
ing out for Jugo-Slav connections which would 
form the basis of a still greater state. Serbia 
was supported by Russia, and Russia was as 
eager as ever for the control of Constantinople 
and the Dardanelles. This ambition would 
be ended if Germany solidified her position in 
Turkey and secured a "corridor" of her own 
through the Balkan states. Serbia was the 
immediate barrier to German plans, and 
Serbia was unwilling to submit to Austrian 
demands. Therefore, Serbia must be crushed 
in order that the Oriental Railway from Ham- 
burg to the Persian Gulf might pass through 
German territory. 1 

1 Any lingering doubts as to Germany's responsibility for the 
war or the willingness of her rulers to see it widen into a European 
conflagration have been swept away by the publication of the 
letter of Prince Lichnowsky, the German imperial ambassador 
at London, and the memorandum of Doctor Wilhelm Muehlon, 
one of the directors of the Krupp Company to the Main Com- 
mittee of the Reichstag. These communications, whose genu- 
ineness has not been questioned by the German press, show that 
the Kaiser either initiated or approved of the Austrian ultima- 



WHY THE WAR CAME 171 

It is safe to say, from what we know of the 
ambitions of the Pan-German groups, that 
the\* felt the) r had been deprived of a coveted 
prize, which was undisputed control of the 
railway from Hamburg to the Indian Ocean. 
To be forced to pass through foreign territory, 
to give up the eastern terminus and with it 
a great base for commercial and possible naval 
operations on the Persian Gulf, was a recog- 
nition of a failure. England and Serbia, sup- 
ported by Russia, still stood athwart the 
German pathway. Germany still enjoyed 
access to the eastern seas by permission of 
other nations. She was still far from that self- 
contained, freely developing empire which 

turn to Serbia; that its recognized effect was the probable im- 
mediate mobilization of forces by Russia, France, and possibly 
Great Britain; that the ultimatum was issued with a full realiza- 
tion of its consequences and a willingness to convulse the world 
over demands so monstrous that they could not possibly be ac- 
cepted by Serbia. The letter of Prince Lichnowsky exonerates 
Great Britain from any warlike animosity toward Germany while 
the memorandum of Doctor Muehlon discloses that the Kaiser and 
his ministers were making all arrangements and organizing the 
resources of the empire for war in the summer of 1914 and that 
iscr's tour in Scandinavian waters was, as stated by one 
of his ministers, merely a "blind." See the New York Times of 
Sunday, April 21, 1918, for text of the letter and memorandum 
referred to. 



172 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

had been the dream of the imperialistic classes 
for a quarter of a century. Turkey, Asia 
Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, the east 
coast of Africa, India, and Australia were still 
shielded by British command of the Mediter- 
ranean, and the water routes from the English 
Channel to the Far East. The pent-up jealousy 
of England, of her commercial and financial 
supremacy, of her far-flung empire, gained dur- 
ing the years when Germany was still a group 
of warring states, rankled in the mind of the 
military and the commercial classes, who were 
unable to see the British Empire in any other 
terms than subject states ready at the slight- 
est opportunity to rise in insurrection against 
British rule. Russia, too, was economically free 
to trade where she willed; she was free to pur- 
sue her ambitions toward the Dardanelles and 
in the Balkans. 

Such was the psychology of the military and 
Pan-German classes. It was the psychology 
of balked ambitions. And balked ambitions 
always rankle. 

To Great Britain, on the other hand, the 
menace was almost as imminent as ever. A 
railway to Basra near the Persian Gulf, the 



WHY THE WAR CAME 173 

possibility of a railroad down through Syria 
and Palestine to the lower end of the Mediter- 
ranean, was still a threat to Egypt and the 
Suez Canal, while control of Mesopotamia 
was but a little short of control of the Persian 
Gulf and southern Persia. The British Em- 
pire was still threatened by the conventions 
with Germany made in 1914, for Germany was 
now free to develop her plans with that thor- 
oughness which characterizes her colonial 
policy. In a few years' time she might be 
ready for a new drive to the East backed by a 
great railroad system, with an abundance of 
food and supplies, and with the Turkish army 
as an aid to her military operations. In such 
a struggle, with the necessity of bringing troops, 
munitions, and supplies by water, the disad- 
vantages to Great Britain were apparent. 
No longer would she be an island empire, al- 
most impregnable from attack by reason of 
her position. She would have to defend by 
water, not a nation of 67,000,000 people 3,000 
miles away from Egypt, but an empire grown 
to a hundred million, with a Turkish army of 
possibly 2,000,000 men trained by German 
methods on the ground. 



J 



174 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

The world is still in the dark as to the reasons 
for the German-Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. 
Germany was fast conquering the world by 
peaceful economic penetration. Why did she 
abandon the counting-room for the sword ? 
Why did she make war for that which she was 
rapidly acquiring by peaceful means ? Is not 
the explanation to be found in the fact that 
Serbia and Great Britain lay across the path- 
way of her coveted empire, extending from 
Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, an empire to 
be built and consolidated about a great trans- 
continental railway system which was to be 
the foundation of economic and political power ? 

Desperate wars are only undertaken for great 
stakes. The stakes of German success was 
an empire of 200,000,000 people. But when 
war is determined on, a pretext can always 
be found. The pretext for the German assault 
on the world was the assassination of Grand 
Duke Ferdinand; the cause was ambition for 
empire, an empire coveted by ambitious con- 
querors from the dawn of history down to the 
present day. Here was the birthplace of Eu- 
ropean peoples; here was the centre of a civili- 
zation that had endured for thousands of years; 



WHY THE WAR CAME 175 

here were the traditions of the glories of 
Greece, of Rome, of the mediaeval Italian 
cities; here was means for control of the wealth 
of Persia and India, of the Mediterranean and 
the greatest trade route of the world. Other 
conquerors had failed because of failure of 
transport. This had been provided by Ger- 
man engineers who were fast tunnelling the 
mountains and crossing the rivers of western 
Asia. The Oriental Railway was the means of 
conquest. It would unite Berlin with Bagdad. 
But little Serbia blocked the pathway. She 
was the Belgium of the Mediterranean and of 
Egypt, India, and Asia and, in a sense, of the 
world as well. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE STRATEGIC CENTRE OF 
THE WORLD 

Not only had the warring Powers reached 
an impasse in the Mediterranean, but the whole 
world is inextricably involved in this great 
waterway and the trade routes from Europe 
to Asia. As has been indicated, the history 
of Europe has revolved in great part about 
the struggle for this territory and the trade 
routes to the Orient. Empire after empire, and 
conqueror after conqueror have struggled for its 
possession. Darius, Cyrus, Xerxes, Alexander 
the Great, Mark Antony, Trajan, Aurelian 
fought for the control of this part of the world. 
The wars of Rome and Carthage had their 
origin in the struggle for Mediterranean su- 
premacy. The Italian cities fought for the 
trade of the Orient, from which they derived 
their wealth. Napoleon was drawn to Egypt 

to plant the flag of France at the connecting 

176 



STRATEGIC CEXTRE OF THE WORLD 177 

link of Europe and Asia. Russia and England 
manoeuvred for years over the control of the 
same territory. The Crimean War was a war 
for the control of Turkey and western Asia. 
The long hostility of England and France, 
culminating in the Fashoda incident, had its 
origin in this part of the world. For a quarter 
of a century all the Allied Powers have been 
in a state of apprehension; they have utilized 
diplomacy, finance, and force to prevent the 
empire of Germany, with the aid of science, 
engineering, railroads, and finance, from oc- 
cupying Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and 
the trade routes from Europe to India. 

The Mediterranean is an extension of the 
British Channel. Mesopotamia is an extension 
of Mitteleuropa. Here billions of investments, 
billions of commerce, billions of shipping are 
in collision. The imperialistic ambitions of 
five great nations are involved, as is the political 
and economic life of a score of other races and 
peoples. 

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
as has been recalled, the control of this territory 
passed into the hands of the Turks. The trade 
route to the Orient was interrupted. States 



178 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

and cities fell to decay. This interruption of 
the economic life of Europe revolutionized 
society. It shifted trade, commerce, and wealth 
to the West. The discovery of a sea route to 
India around the lower end of Africa, and the 
rise of the Atlantic states to power ended 
the supremacy of the Mediterranean. It ceased 
to be the centre of the world. The trade to 
the East abandoned the old courses for the 
safer routes around the Cape of Good Hope. 
Within a short time England took to the seas, 
while continental Europe from Vienna to the 
Netherlands gradually decayed. 

Such was the importance of the Mediter- 
ranean in mediaeval times. How much more 
important is this trade route to-day when all 
the world is interdependent, and the trade in- 
volved and the interests affected run into many 
billions of dollars. For the foreign commerce 
of the states bordering on the Mediterranean 
amounts (1914) to #2,500,000,000, while, with 
Russia and Austria-Hungary added, it amounts 
to #5,ooo,ooo,ooo. 1 The trade through the 
Suez Canal amounts to #1,600,000,000 more. 

1 A large part of the commerce and foreign trade of Russia 
and Austria-Hungary passes through other channels. 



STRATEGIC CEXTRE OF THE WORLD 179 

Not only is the economic life of Europe in- 
volved in the Mediterranean, but the relations 
pf Asia to the western world are controlled by 
it. So are the relations of Australia, New Zea- 
land, the Pacific Islands, and the east coast of 
Africa. For control of the Mediterranean in- 
volves potential control over the Far East. 
It determines the alliances of nations as well 
as their economic connections. 

The states about the Mediterranean are 
even more vitally affected by the disposition 
of this vast territory. And these states con- 
tain 108,000,000 people. With Russia and 
Austria-Hungary added, they contain 340,- 
000,000. Twenty separate nations or peoples 
live about this waterway, and enjoy access 
and contact with the world through its channels 
to the seas. Their industrial life, their trade, 
and their commerce is dependent upon it. The 
economic life of practically all of Europe, Asia, 
and Africa is in fact interlaced with the Mediter- 
ranean. Its importance is far greater than it 
was in ancient and mediaeval times, when the 
world centred about the valleys of Mesopo- 
tamia and the " Royal Road" to the Orient. 
For the Mediterranean is the connecting link 



180 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of Europe and Asia. It is the umbilical cord 
of the world. 

The control of this waterway and the terri- 
tories round about it by any Power or group 
of Powers is a menace to the security of the 
world. It is a menace to the unity of empires 
and the alliances of states. It affects the psy- 
chology of the states round about it. Russia, 
Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Italy, and Greece, 
as well as Serbia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Egypt, 
Tunis, Algeria, and western Asia, are affected 
by their fear of subjection — either economic 
or political — to another Power. For they are 
only permitted to reach the outside world 
with the assent of some other nation. They 
cannot develop freely. This may seem a mat- 
ter of small importance, but it is only so to 
the greater Powers. To the states affected, 
each as eager for complete freedom as any of 
the greater nations, the control of the Mediter- 
ranean by any Power awakens their fears. And 
the Mediterranean states do not feel free. 
Moreover, the greater nations are engaged in 
a struggle to increase their control as a means 
of protection to empire ? as a guarantee of 
security to their trade, and as a means of up- 



STRATEGIC C EXT RE OF THE WORLD 1S1 

building their economic life. This is perfectly 
obvious in the case of Russia. From the time 
of Peter the Great she has been seeking access 
to the seas. One war after another has been 
fought for this purpose. This has been the 
consuming ambition of Russian statecraft. 
The will of Peter the Great is said to contain 
the following passage: "I recommend all my 
successors to realize this truth, that the trade 
of the Indies is the trade of the world, and 
whoever is able to control it exclusively will 
be the real sovereign of Europe. In conse- 
quence, we should never miss any opportunity 
of exciting wars in Persia, to hasten the dis- 
integration of that country, to penetrate to 
the Persian Gulf, and to attempt then to re- 
establish the ancient commerce of the Levant 
through Syria." ■ 

Russia is dependent upon the outside world 
for her economic existence. If the Darda- 
nelles and the Baltic are closed against her; 
if the Mediterranean remains a closed sea, 
she is unable to freely exchange her products 
with the outside world. The development of 
Russia is dependent upon the freedom of the 

1 German Road to the East, Evans Lcwin, p. 42. 



182 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Dardanelles and the Mediterranean. The 
same is true of Austria-Hungary; it is true 
of the other states as well. 

Our own psychology is only less touchy than 
that of England, Germany, and Russia. We, 
too, have been guided in our foreign policy 
by the fear that some European Power might 
gain a foothold in the Americas. The Monroe 
Doctrine is the American equivalent of the 
British control of the Mediterranean. We are 
apprehensive about the West Indies and the 
Philippines; we are apprehensive that some 
other Power may menace the Panama Canal 
or build another canal across the Isthmus. 
Nationalistic psychology baffles reason. It is 
much the same in all countries. It keeps Anglo- 
Saxon, Teuton, Slav, and Latin in a state of 
fear. And were some other nation as powerful 
as our own to control the entrance to New 
York harbor; were the Panama Canal under 
the guns of some foreign fortress; were San 
Francisco subject to blockade in case of war; 
no friendly assurance would suffice to suppress 
the demand for a huge naval establishment, 
and possibly a trial of strength to free our- 
selves from the danger of having the waterways 



STFL4TEGIC CEXTRE OF THE WORLD 183 

of the world closed against us. In nations as 
in peoples there is a psychology that instinc- 
tively insists upon the right of contact with 
the outside world. We have been ready to 
go to war for the protection of our waterways. 
In 1900, at the time of the Venezuela incident, 
when the Kaiser informed President Roosevelt 
of his intention to send a fleet to Venezuela, 
the American fleet was ordered to be in readi- 
ness to proceed to Caribbean waters. The 
German ambassador was advised of this fact, 
and informed that the Venezuela question 
must be submitted to arbitration. German 
intervention in Venezuela was not only a defi- 
ance of the Monroe Doctrine, it was a menace 
to the Panama Canal. 

That this is the psychology of England, 
Austria-Hungary, and Russia there is no 
doubt. For Austria-Hungary is situated as 
is Russia. She, too, desires free and unmenaced 
access to the seas. Not only through the 
Danube and Trieste, but through the Atlantic 
and Indian Oceans as well. Austria-Hungary 
is struggling for Salonika and control of the 
Adriatic as Germany is struggling for the Per- 
sian Gulf. These are the great objectives of 



184 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

these two Powers. Austria-Hungary has built 
up a substantial merchant marine. She has 
developed a large foreign trade. But her sea- 
ports are under the potential menace of Italy 
and Great Britain. That these states have 
not used their power in peace times to sup- 
press Austro-Hungarian commerce, or to in- 
terfere with her trade with the world, in no 
wise relieves the mind of the nation or the ap- 
prehension of the commercial classes, who 
invest their money in industry and shipping 
that may be placed in peril by the action of 
another Power. Italy and the Balkan states 
are in the same position. They too are in con- 
stant fear for their sea connections and access 
to the outside world. 

France, too, is far from self-contained. And 
her life is centred in the Mediterranean. 
French investments in Russia amount to prob- 
ably $3,000,000,000. In Turkey and the Bal- 
kan states they amount to $1,200,000,000 
more. Her trade is largely with the Near- 
Eastern countries, into which the savings of 
her peasants have gone to the extent of bil- 
lions of dollars. 

This is why the Mediterranean is the heart 



STILITEGIC CEXTRE OF THE WORLD 185 

of the war. The old nationalism of Bismarck 
came to an end with the last century. Inter- 
nationalism has taken its place; an interna- 
tionalism that is economic, industrial, finan- 
cial. The whole world' is interlocked. And 
the Mediterranean basin is the strategic centre 
of three continents. It controls international 
relations almost as completely as it did for 
centuries before the Christian era when one 
empire after another fought for its control. 
That the eyes of the world are centred on the 
trenches of Flanders in no wise alters the fact 
that the chancelleries of Europe are con- 
sciously or unconsciously concerned over the 
control of this part of the w T orld, and especially 
of the waterways and land routes, the harbors 
and strategic points, and the imperial questions 
that are inextricably merged with this vast 
territory. The Mediterranean remains the 
nexus of the Occident and the Orient, as it 
was in the days of the Assyrians and the Per- 
sians, of the Greeks and the Romans, of the 
Italian cities, and the south European towns 
in the latter Middle Ages. Its control will de- 
termine the future of the world far more com- 
pletely than the control of western Europe. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE RIGHTS OF STATES 

Is there no way out of this age-long struggle 
for this part of the world ? Must it ever be the 
object of exclusive control by one nation or 
another ? Must the conflict of empires go on 
to-day and possibly be renewed a generation 
hence as it has been from the beginning of 
recorded history ? Is there no solution save 
dominion by one group of Powers or another 
and the sacrifice of the rights and the free de- 
velopment of a score of states and a hundred 
million people who are unwillingly involved in 
the controversy ? Is there no alternative that 
will relieve Great Britain from the burden of 
protecting her empire and at the same time 
satisfy the claims of all other nations and guar- 
antee freedom of access to the Mediterranean 
and the straits and passageways that connect 
this part of Europe with the outside world ? 

Is there no release for the Balkan states, 
Italy, Greece, and the peoples of the Mediter- 

186 



THE RIGHTS OF STATES 187 

ranean from the imperialistic control of the 
waterways which wash their shores ? Is there 
no other solution than war or exclusive con- 
trol of these trade routes ? Are there no demo- 
cratic principles that can be appealed to, and 
no assurances that can be provided to remove 
one and all of these problems from the arbitra- 
ment of arms ? Can arrangements be made 
that will satisfy Great Britain and Germany, 
Russia and France, Serbia and Bulgaria, Italy 
and Greece ? Cannot some new guarantees 
be devised that will assure for all time and in 
all emergencies the right to free, unimpeded 
development to one and all of these nations, 
and with it the development of the civiliza- 
tion of the world ? This is one of the great prob- 
lems of peace. 

No nation is free, certainly no nation feels 
free, no matter how lightly the hand of the 
dominant Power may be, that is subject to 
the will of another nation in its contact with 
the outside world. And all of the states upon 
the Mediterranean suffer subjectively, as well 
as in their economic life, from the fact that 
their international relations are under possible 
inhibition from frowning fortresses, closed 



188 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

waterways or railroads in the possession of 
some other Power. 1 

The economic internationalism described in 
an earlier chapter 2 has also given the Mediter- 
ranean a new importance. It may become of 
great importance to the United States. For 
the life of a great industrial state is dependent 
upon free communication and especially on 
free access to raw materials. And Africa, west- 
ern Asia, and the Far East are the only sources 
from which many of the raw products and 
food supplies can be secured. This condition 
will be intensified when the war is over. The 
exhausted world will rush for cotton, wool, 
oil, rubber, timber, dyestuffs, silk, cocoa and 
cocoa-oil, coffee, tea, ivory, metals of all kinds, 
as well as for the trade of Asia, Africa, and 

1 Great Britain recognized this apprehension on the part of 
Germany just before the war and made repeated overtures to 
satisfy it. Her Foreign Office held conversations with the Ger- 
man representatives for the purpose of ending the fears that lay 
back of the increase in the German navy. The letter of Prince 
Lichnowsky, the German ambassador at London at the outbreak 
of the war, and in many ways the most remarkable document 
yet published showing Germany's willingness to bring on the 
war, discloses the repeated efforts made by the British Foreign 
Office to relieve German fears and recognize German rights in 
Mesopotamia and the Near East. 

2 See Chapter I. 



TEE RIGHTS OF STATES 189 

the Mediterranean countries. However im- 
portant the Mediterranean was before the war 
its importance in the future will be vastly 
greater than at any time in the past. It will 
largely control the commercial and industrial 
life of Europe. 

There are no substitutes for the products of 
the tropics, for cotton, rubber, dyestuffs, silks, 
cocoa, oils, timber, and the thousands of mate- 
rials which enter into the diversified activities 
of the modern industrial state. 

This is why the Mediterranean is of such 
transcendent importance to the industrial and 
commercial life of the modern world. And as 
time goes on the Mediterranean and the sources 
of supply of raw materials will be of supreme 
importance to other nations, our own included. 

Peace must recognize that the old isolation 
is a thing of the past; that self-contained states 
no longer exist; that the whole world is inter- 
dependent and must have free contact with 
every other people if it would live. The ex- 
clusive nationalism of the last century has 
gone never to return. And the peace conferees 
must find some solution of the problems of 
waterways, of strategic land routes, of con- 



i go TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

necting straits that will put an end to the fear 
which is one of the causes of war and of con- 
tinuing armaments as well. For the world will 
never disarm so long as the economic security 
and possibly the life of great states is in real 
or fancied peril from some other Power. 



CHAPTER XIX 
A MONUMENT TO PEACE 

The collapse of Germany frees the Mediter- 
ranean. Her dream of empire is at an end. 
Turkey is prostrate. Her subject races are 
forever freed from Ottoman control. The 
highways from the Occident to the Orient are 
unmenaced. The world has unbroken com- 
munication with itself. The Allied nations 
are in unchallenged control of this whole terri- 
tory. 

The defeat of the Central Powers enables 
the democratic world to establish a peace that 
will end the age-long wars that have sacrificed 
the energies of mankind from the beginnings 
of organized society. In this struggle the Med- 
iterranean nations and the Near East have 
been the continuous sufferers. 

This monument to peace should be a free 
Mediterranean, under the guardianship of the 
world. It should be the ward of civilization 

If; i 



192 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

administered in the interest of the world. For 
private control of the Mediterranean there 
should be international control; for exclusive 
possession of waterways and harbors there 
should be international waterways and har- 
bors; for private concessions and the closed 
door there should be international concessions 
and the open door. For exclusive exploitation 
there should be international financing and an 
end of exploitation. This ancient centre of 
civilization should become the ward of the 
peace-loving world. 

The Mediterranean belongs to the world. 
The states round about it belong to themselves. 
The Mediterranean itself is part of the high 
seas, as are the straits and waterways which 
unite it with the seas. And the only solution 
to the struggle for its control is to make it a 
world highway, and by so doing, to end the 
struggle for control of strategic places and the 
trade routes which connect the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans with the continents of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa. The Mediterranean should 
be made international territory. The land 
routes and the water routes, as well as the 
territories round about them should be free 



A MONUMENT TO PEACE 193 

from military or political dominion. The terri- 
tory to be so internationalized should include: 

One. The Balkan states, Turkey, Asia 
Minor, Persia, and Mesopotamia. 

Two, The Bagdad Railway from Austria- 
Hungary to the Persian Gulf. 

Three. The Mediterranean waterways from 
the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean; the 
Adriatic, Black Sea, the Straits of Gibraltar, 
the Suez Canal, and the Dardanelles. 

Four. The harbors of Constantinople, Salo- 
nika, Smyrna, Trieste, Alexandretta, Basra, 
and other strategic ports should be open to all 
nations on equal terms. They should be world 
ports. 

This whole territory should be free from 
political control by any single nation or group 
of nations. It should be free from military or 
naval operations and the maintenance of any 
military establishment by any Power. 

This region should also be freed from eco- 
nomic privileges or discriminations. The trade, 
commerce, and economic life of this great terri- 
tory should be permitted to follow its natural 
channels under the supervision of an inter- 
national tribunal provided for that purpose. 



194 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

The whole world should be permitted to use 
the waterways from the Atlantic Ocean and 
the railroads from Austria- Hungary to the 
Persian Gulf on equal terms. They should 
not be used for military or naval purposes. 
In other words, there should be an end of mili- 
tary dominion of the entire Mediterranean 
basin. This should be international soil. It 
should be under the control of the world, and 
its neutrality should be guaranteed by an in- 
ternational force. 

The states bordering upon the Mediter- 
ranean should abandon their naval establish- 
ments. If possible, they should abandon their 
military establishments as well. There should 
be no armed vessels of any Power (except for 
transit) within the confines of any enclosed 
sea, just as there are no armed vessels on the 
Great Lakes. This would free the smaller 
states from the drain upon their resources in 
their attempt to keep up the pace for arma- 
ments — a pace which they cannot successfully 
maintain, and which only involves them in 
trouble. 

If the military menace of the Powers can 
be removed from the Mediterranean; if the 



.1 MONUMENT TO PEACE 195 

Balkans, Turkey, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, 
Persia, and other peoples can be freed from 
political control; if equality of trade is guaran- 
teed to all nations alike; then it will no longer 
be necessary for individual nations to struggle 
for the control of this territory. Then the 
apprehensions which have kept England, Rus- 
sia, and Germany in a state of nervous tension 
for the greater part of a century would be at 
an end. If, in addition, the closed door and 
economic privileges of all kinds were ended, 
and the rights of self-determination were ex- 
tended to the Balkan states, to Armenia, Meso- 
potamia, Syria, and Palestine, to Egypt, Tripoli, 
Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, the entire Medi- 
terranean would become neutral territory: such 
neutrality to be guaranteed and protected by 
the world. 

Such a neutralization of territory finds a 
counterpart in the conventions between the 
United States and Canada for the abolition 
of military and naval establishments on the 
Great Lakes. For nearly a hundred years there 
has been no armed vessels, no military posts, 
and — far more important — no thought of war 
between these two neighboring peoples. The 



196 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Great Lakes have been free. And the absence 
of war preparations has in itself created a 
sense of peace. No one thinks of war as a 
possibility, and no sane man would suggest 
the abandonment of the treaties of neutraliza- 
tion which have served the two countries so 
well. 

This world empire would not disturb the 
internal sovereignty of other states. It should 
not impair the freedom of Italy, of Greece, of 
the Balkan states, of Austria-Hungary, of any 
of the countries round about the Mediter- 
ranean except to preserve peace and security. 
Other nations would be admitted to the coun- 
cil of nations that control the Mediterranean 
as they agree to observe its decrees. 

The empire suggested would be democracy's 
equivalent of the empire sought by Ger- 
many. It would be the twentieth-century 
solution of the struggle which has been going 
on for the control of the Near East since the 
beginning of history. It would end the power 
for evil of the Turk. It would free Russia and 
the Austria-Hungarian states from fear that the 
avenues of communication would be closed 
against them. It would reopen the trade routes 



A MONUMENT TO PEACE ioy 

to the Far East by way of the Bagdad Railway 
and the rivers of Mesopotamia, and by so doing 
promote the economic life of Persia, India, 
Armenia, and the rich regions of Mesopotamia 
and the East. 

The capital of this world empire should be 
Constantinople. It should be the world's cos- 
mopolis governed by an international com- 
mission. Constantinople lies at the heart of 
three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. 
Here again should be the seat of a world em- 
pire as it was for hundreds of years. 

Out from Constantinople would run the 
world highways. These highways would in- 
clude the Dardanelles, the Black Sea, and the 
lower Danube. The Bagdad Railway from 
Austria-Hungary to the Persian Gulf should 
become an international railroad financed and 
controlled by the League of Nations. It should 
be completed and extended to India by way of 
Persia. It should connect with the harbors 
of the eastern Mediterranean in Syria, and 
Palestine as well as the Black Sea. It should 
form part of a great Oriental transportation 
system intersecting all Europe, from London 
by way of tunnel under the Channel, through 



198 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Paris, Milan, and the Balkans, as well as from 
Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and the 
Balkan states. It might be extended to the 
Pacific Ocean through southern Siberia. It 
should be the economic bond of permanent 
security as it was to have been the symbol of 
German power. The railroad should be open 
to all nations and peoples on equal terms. It 
should be like the open seas. 

The Suez Canal is in theory an international 
waterway. The Adriatic is a cause of con- 
troversy and a source of fear on the part of 
Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the Balkan states. 
It is their only outlet to the world. The rivers 
of the Balkans, especially the Danube and the 
Vardar, should be internationalized. 

The harbors of the eastern Mediterranean 
should be free ports. Salonika, Smyrna, Alex- 
andretta should become international harbors. 
Constantinople, under such protection, might 
become one of the great ports of the world, 
as nature intended it to be. It should be free 
from any customs tolls or tariffs. It should 
be the great entrepot of trade of three con- 
tinents, the clearing-house between India, 
Persia, China, and Japan, and the east coast 



A MONUMENT TO PEACE 199 

of Africa with the industrial nations of Eu- 
rope. 

This is the function Constantinople was in- 
tended to perform. It was its strategic trade 
position that made Constantinople the centre 
of the world in ancient and mediaeval times. 
To it the trade of the Far East found its way 
across the plains of Mesopotamia. It was 
and still is nature's gateway to Europe. 

This world empire would be the guardian 
of the Balkans. It would be the protector of 
Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, 
and other dependent peoples to be later ad- 
mitted to its suzerainty. As democracy ad- 
vances, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco 
might pass under its jurisdiction, as well as 
Central and South Africa. 

For the first time in history it is possible 
to relieve the whole territory from bondage, 
war, and the struggle of the greater Powers 
to control its life in the interest of empire. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE REBIRTH OF THE 
MEDITERRANEAN 

The peace suggested is a peace for the future 
security of the world; a peace for peoples rather 
than for rulers; for disarmament rather than 
for a continuation of militarism; a peace for 
the hundreds of millions of subject peoples 
and the small and subject nationalities which 
suffer most from war rather than for the out- 
raged feelings of those who feel they must have 
revenge for the outlawry of the Central Powers. 
And it is for these ends that America is in the 
war. We are fighting that the world may be 
free from wars, free from the things that make 
for war. We desire that the world may be a 
safe place for all people to live in; to develop 
their own cultures and civilizations unmolested 
by any other Power. America made war on 
Germany not that we or our allies might do 
what we would with the subject world but that 
the subject world might be free from oppression 
by any Power. And such are the ideals of the 



REBIRTH OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 201 

Russian revolutionists, of the British Labor 
party, of the Congress of Italian working men. 
Such is the ideal of the small nations and of the 
weak and defenseless peoples of all the earth. 
They desire that this war shall end war, not 
lay the mines of the next war. 

An internationalized Mediterranean affords 
an opportunity to reawaken the traditions 
with which the Mediterranean is associated, 
to recall a splendor that has passed away with 
the change in trade routes, the rise of industry, 
and the coming of the more virile races to the 
north. But the possibilities of a great civiliza- 
tion are still there. No country has more charm, 
more instinct for beauty, art, science, and 
learning than Italy. Its development during 
the last two generations is fairly comparable 
to that of the nations of the north. It has 
been limited by the lack of resources and the 
exhaustion born of wars and preparedness for 
wars. Italy has no iron, no copper, no coal. 
There is but little timber. Much of its land 
is still uncultivated from lack of capital. Italy 
is dependent on the outside world for the ma- 
terial things that go to make up a modern 
state. She has to import food and fuel. She 



202 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

must go to other countries for iron, steel, and 
copper. She can only build her railroads, her 
merchant marine, her battleships by the grace 
of other nations. 

The great need of Italy is economic, and 
this need America, Great Britain, and France 
can extend to her. 

Italy might be assisted to development by 
the other Powers, a development that will 
redound to the well-being of the rest of the 
world. Italy produces few articles that com- 
pete with other countries. Yet her products 
are needed by the world. Other nations should 
open their doors free from tariffs to the wealth 
of Italy, not only as a measure of gratitude, 
not only as a recognition of her traditions, but 
as a means of luring to our homes the art, the 
color, and the beauty which Italy possesses, and 
which her people are eager to express. 

The traditions of Greece, like those of Italy, 
are traditions of beauty. Here, too, civiliza- 
tion lingered for hundreds of years. For cen- 
turies Greece has been paying the price of 
militarism, of the struggle for the eastern Med- 
iterranean. She has been coveted by nations 
and empires. The Romans, Turks, the coun- 
tries of the Balkan Peninsula have kept Greece 



REBIRTH OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 203 

in a state of suspense. The country has had 
no chance to develop. Greece, too, needs the 
protection of disinterested friends to release her 
from fear, from the burdens of militarism, from 
continuous wars. She needs the raw materials 
which come from the hardier countries. She 
needs credit and the scientific and engineering 
aid that the more advanced nations have to 
offer. 

The condition of Italy and Greece indicates 
again how narrow nationalism and mediaeval 
ideas of protection have gnarled the world 
and forced people into channels at war with 
nature. It has made a hod-carrier of the artist. 
It has closed the homes of the Western world 
to the beauties of the Mediterranean peoples. 
It has forced the Italians into competition 
with Germany and England; it has destroyed 
the traditions and aspirations of peoples, and 
driven them to the doing of things of but little 
value to them at best and at terrible cost to 
their life as well. 

This is why the peace which comes should 
permit the greatest possible freedom of trade 
among all nations. This is why the small na- 
tions should be encouraged to develop their 
cultures, their literature, their gifts to the 



204 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

world. This Empire of the Allies should be 
a guardian not alone of highways and terri- 
tories, it should be the promoter of civiliza- 
tion as well. 

Farther east in western Asia there are pos- 
sibilities of development. Asia Minor and 
Anatolia are rich with possibilities of trade, 
commerce, and agriculture. Farther down the 
Tigris and Euphrates valleys are opportunities 
for reclamation projects, for water-power, for 
mines, timber, and oil. Most important of all, 
millions of acres of land, potentially rich, wait 
only on labor, security, and the harnessing of 
the water-power of the rivers to reclaim this 
region which was long the centre of the civili- 
zation of the world. Wheat and cotton can 
be grown adequate for the needs of millions of 
people. People now living as semicivilized no- 
mads would be given an opportunity to till these 
lands and to build up trade and commerce. 
There are 20,000,000 people in Turkey who 
need the guidance and organizing ability of 
the world to become a far greater people than 
they have ever been; while the Syrians, Ar- 
menians, and other Christian peoples have 
great aptitude along industrial lines, an ap- 
titude now repressed by the Turks. 



REBIRTH OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 205 

Finally, with the freeing of the Mediter- 
ranean from the conflict which has existed 
for generations, this whole territory from the 
Italian peninsula to Persia might easily be- 
come a centre of civilization as it was for cen- 
turies. Here the routes of trade cross one an- 
other. They go from India to the Atlantic 
Ocean and return. They go from South and 
Central Africa to Egypt and back again. From 
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Balkans 
they run to the south, and from the Orient 
they run back to central Europe. 

Constantinople should be one of the world's 
great clearing-houses. It should be a centre 
of trade and commerce like London and Ham- 
burg. Here goods and wares should be ex- 
changed. Here a free port, like those of Lon- 
don, Liverpool, Hamburg, Bremen, and Copen- 
hagen, would receive and discharge cargoes. 
Thousands of miles of transportation would 
be saved if cargoes from Asia and Africa could 
load and unload at Constantinople and the 
ports of the Mediterranean. With such a 
development of trade, commerce, and industry 
this part of the world would reclaim its ancient 
distinction. It is only the Mercantilist ideas 
of the eighteenth century and the narrow pro- 



206 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

tectionist policies of the twentieth century that 
sees in the prosperity of one country the mis- 
fortune of another. And no single thing would 
contribute more to the peace and prosperity 
of Europe than the generous development of 
the Mediterranean region, even though that 
development did end some of the monopolies 
and privileges which the commercial and trad- 
ing classes of the several Powers now enjoy. 1 

x The placing of portions of the Mediterranean under inter- 
national control has met with approval where approval was 
least to be expected. The British Labor party in its statement 
of December 28, 1917, suggested that Palestine be made "a free 
state, under international guarantee." With regard to Armenia, 
Mesopotamia, and Arabia, "if in these territories it is imprac- 
ticable to leave it to the peoples to settle their own destinies the 
Labor party insists that, conformably with the policy of 'no 
annexations,' they should be placed for administration in the 
hands of a commission acting under the supernational authority 
or League of Nations," which, for the sake of the peace of the 
world, should also administer Constantinople, the Dardanelles, 
and possibly some or all of Asia Minor. 

Mr. Norman Hapgood, writing as foreign correspondent of 
the New York Evening Post, July 21, and October 6, 1917, speaks 
of the views of "some of the best informed British statesmen" 
with regard to an international solution of the problem of Con- 
stantinople and the Straits, and says, "it has become not im- 
probable that for the rest of Turkey also, including Arabia, Meso- 
potamia, Armenia, and Palestine, some kind of an international 
rule with nominal Turkish^sovereignty'may be the outcome." 
See article by Professor Emily Balch in The New World, February, 
1918. 



CHAPTER XXI 
GUARANTEES OF PEACE 

With the Mediterranean free, the policing 
of peace became a comparatively easy matter. 
For the Mediterranean is the strategic centre 
of the world. It connects Europe with Asia 
and the east coast of Africa. It commands 
access to Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, 
Greece, and the Balkan states. It controls 
the connections of the British Empire. It 
unites the Orient with the Occident. It con- 
trols the raw materials on which the economic 
life of the modern state depends. 

No industrial nation could develop with 
the Mediterranean closed against it. It could 
scarcely make successful war against any other 
state. 

The Mediterranean commission would be 

in a position to control the economic life of 

Europe. It could compel adherence to its 

decrees by placing an embargo on any nation 

which refused to abide by its decision. It would 

207 



208 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

control the waterways and the land routes, 
and, what is more important, it would com- 
mand the raw materials of the east coast of 
Africa, of the Congo, of Persia, as well as of 
Egypt, India, Australia, and China. It could 
close mills and factories. For the whole world 
is so dependent upon the Mediterranean that 
any obstruction to the connections of any one 
of the greater Powers would derange its in- 
dustrial life. If enforced long enough it might 
bring bankruptcy as well. 

That is why Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, the 
Bagdad Railway, and the Suez Canal are so 
important. These places are nearly impregna- 
ble. They are difficult of approach. They are 
so well supported from the rear that they can- 
not be passed. 

With these strategic points in international 
hands, a great war would be almost impos- 
sible. Disarmament would then be an easier 
matter. The odds against a nation that laid 
down the gage of battle would be too great. 
Quite as important, war would no longer be 
always imminent. There would be an end of 
fear; of competition for armaments; of 
struggles for alliances and counter-alliances. 



GUARANTEES OF PEACE 209 

The world would breathe freely with the 
burden of policing taken from the hands of 
the individual nations and placed in the hands 
of the world, where it belongs. Then the irri- 
tations and controversies that have kept Eu- 
rope in a state of nervous tension for the past 
fifty years would tend to be allayed. War 
would pass from men's minds as a means of 
settling disputes, when the fear which precedes 
wars is taken aw T ay. 

But the real guardian of such an empire 
would be its justice. The gains from freedom 
are so obvious, while the sanctity of interna- 
tional territory is so solemn, that nations would 
guard its decrees from self-interest. Public 
opinion and economic interest would be the 
great protectors of a free Mediterranean. 

Obvioush', some new kind of a world organ- 
ization must be provided with adequate forces 
at its command for the adjustment of disputes 
and the enforcement of neutrality within this 
territory. Some military force must be pro- 
vided that will occupy the strategic points 
on the land and sea. There must be means 
for guaranteeing the freedom of the Balkan 
states, of Asia Minor, of Mesopotamia, and 



210 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

of the states on the southern shores of the 
Mediterranean. The Mediterranean territory 
must be guarded by the whole world to which 
it belongs. And an international parliament, 
an international judiciary, and an international 
force can provide such protection. 

The idea of such a tribunal and such a force 
has been widely approved. It has been dis- 
cussed in great detail by many writers. 1 And 
it involves no difficulties that cannot be over- 
come provided a sincere desire exists for its 
creation. 

The main thing, as Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson 
says, is a desire to set up such an international 
agency. He says: 

"Every difficulty would be insuperable so 
long as the present exaggerated sense of na- 
tional importance and inadequacy of inter- 
national obligation continued to characterize 
all the great nations. The purely political 
problems would become capable of solution in 
proportion as the preliminary moral and in- 
tellectual conversion took place." 2 

No great military and naval force is required 
for the enforcement of neutralization if it were 

1 See The Choice Before Us, by G. Lowes Dickinson. 

2 The Choice Before Us, p. 101. 



GUARANTEES OF PEACE 211 

accompanied by disarmament. This is espe- 
cially true of the Mediterranean and other 
waterways and land routes of the earth. Gibral- 
tar, Constantinople, Port Said, Panama, and the 
Kiel Canal are easy of defense. They are so 
situated that an offensive against them would 
be a difficult matter. A substantial navy with- 
in the Mediterranean, supported by land forces 
at strategic points, would be almost impreg- 
nable. And an unwarranted attack upon an 
international force whose inviolability has been 
guaranteed by the world would be like the 
violation of a sanctuary. It would shock the 
moral sense of the world far more than would 
an attack upon a single nation. 

There are many analogies to such a plan. 
France was accorded the right to police Mo- 
rocco by all of the Powers. The treaty of 
Algeciras provides for the application of the 
"principle of economic liberty without in- 
equality." The United States has assumed 
the right to police Cuba and Central America, 
and to maintain the Monroe Doctrine over 
the Western Hemisphere. Japan claims some- 
what analogous rights of hegemony over China. 
There are many examples of such extraterri- 



212 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

tonality. And they have made for peace in 
the main. 

The tribunal which decides all questions 
covered by the treaty should be representative 
not only of the greater Powers but of the smaller 
countries as well. It should be in constant 
session. It should have large powers of in- 
vestigation into the archives of all countries. 
It should be the repository of all treaties. It 
should have representatives in every capital, 
with a position similar to that of an ambas- 
sador. It should have agents within the neu- 
tralized territories ready to report on any 
violation of the treaty of neutrality, and au- 
thority not only to intervene on behalf of the 
treaty but to give immediate publicity to ^any 
violations of it. 

Such a tribunal would have complete military 
jurisdiction over the strategic places and the 
territory intrusted to it. Its powers should be 
absolute. In case of violation of the treaty 
it should act with military decision, just as 
though it were defending the territory of its 
own country. And the tribunal should have 
sufficient military and naval forces at its com- 
mand to uphold the peace intrusted to it. 



GUARANTEES OF PEACE 213 

The smaller countries bordering upon the 
Mediterranean should give up their navies 
or agree to confine their operations in accord- 
ance with the treaties of neutralization; while 
the navies of the great Powers — England, 
France, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hun- 
gary — should be admitted to the neutralized 
zones only for transmit through the water- 
ways. The three-mile zone on the seas is rec- 
ognized by the whole world. Naval battles 
are not permitted within it. Any ship which 
enters a neutral port during time of war must 
depart within a limited period; otherwise it 
is interned. These rules are observed. Rarely 
is there a suggestion that they have been vio- 
lated. And navies or battleships of the Powers 
while in neutral waters could be convoyed by 
ships of the League, their marines could be 
carried on other vessels, the machinery could 
be partially dismantled, or temporary control 
could be delegated to a neutral commander 
until the fleet was outside of the neutral zone. 

Such an arrangement would enable every 
nation to use the neutralized waterways and 
land routes for peaceful errands. The privilege 
would be open to all nations. It would not 



214 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

be under the control of a single Power. And 
naval and military forces should not be em- 
ployed within the international territory. 

This whole territory, from the Atlantic 
Ocean to India, and from Austria-Hungary to 
the Persian Gulf, would become international 
soil. It would be democracy's temple to peace 
and a monument to the freedom of the world. 



CHAPTER XXII 

ENCOURAGE THE SMALL NATIONS 
AND SUBJECT PEOPLES 

A democratic peace will promote the devel- 
opment of all peoples. It will welcome the 
contributions of all states to the civilization of 
the world. It will stimulate the smaller states, 
Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark, 
to the widest possible dissemination of their 
cultures. Like encouragement will be given 
to Ireland, Poland, Bohemia, Finland, Ukrania, 
and the Balkan states. 

The world wants variety, not uniformity. 
Nations should be encouraged to be different. 
Civilization is enriched by the racial char- 
acteristics of many people. And an idealistic 
peace will promote the contributions of all 
nations, be they great or small. 

Previous peace conferences have treated the 
smaller nations as pawns. They possessed no 
rights. They enjoyed no protection. Such 
consideration as they received was obtained 

215 



216 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

by intriguing with this group or that. The 
recognition secured scarcely outlasted the con- 
ference/ The Congress of Vienna in 1814 was \ 
loud in its assurances of "a lasting peace," 
"a reconstruction of the social order"; but 
the only aim of the diplomats was a division 
of the spoils. The partition of Poland was 
made permanent. Venice was given to Aus- 
tria. Prussia was permitted to divide Saxony. 
Holland was joined to Belgium against the * 
wishes of the people of both countries. Genoa 
was turned over to Piedmont. It was a peace 
conference of wolves, and the peace was no 
more durable than it deserved to be. 

The Congress of Berlin in 1878 followed 
the old tradition that the world belonged to 
the strong. It was secret. It represented 
only rulers and the great Powers. The small 
states had no voice in the council. They were 
disposed of as they had been for centuries. 
Little countries were swapped as though they 
were horses. It was a "peace with honor," as 
Disraeli said, but it laid the mines of future 
wars. The treaty of Berlin was not a peace 
treaty, it was a military arsenal. 

For the first time in history a great Power 



ENCOURAGE THE SMALL XATIOXS 217 

has spoken for small states and subject peoples. 
The idea of self-determination has been given 
the solemn sanction of the President of the 
United States. It remains for the peace coun- 
cil to apply this obviously just principle. 
There are wrongs to be atoned by all of the 
Powers. There are states to be recreated, 
races to be freed. 

Why is it that we assume that the great 
state is a greater force for civilization than 
the small state ? Does it do more for its people; 
does it maintain a higher standard of living 
and education; does it promote culture, the 
arts, the drama ? Does it contribute more 
to the outside world ? Or is the great state 
merely a product of the mediaeval mind, of 
ambitious conquerors like Alexander the Great, 
like the Emperors of Rome, like Frederick 
the Great, Louis XIV, Bismarck, or Kaiser 
William II ? Is not the great state idea merely 
another product of the military ideal ? 

Do the great states maintain the peace of 
the world ? Do they make it possible for 
civilization to develop free from wars and con- 
flict ? Are the empires and nations of to-day 
greater agencies of human welfare than the 



218 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

small states which they are seeking to absorb ? 

Is not the reverse true ? Small states have 
been the centres of a highly organized life from 
the time of Athens down to date. They have 
promoted the arts and sciences. They have 
encouraged learning. They have built beau- 
tiful cities. They have vied with one another 
in the higher things of life. To-day it is not 
the greater nations that maintain the highest 
standard of well-being. It is rather the small 
states. This is true of Switzerland, of Hol- 
land, of Denmark, of the Scandinavian coun- 
tries. They are experiment stations for the 
world. These are the countries that have the 
lowest illiteracy of Europe. 

History is eloquent in defense of the small 
state. Can it be successfully contended that 
the Machtkultur of present-day Germany is a 
greater service to the world than the culture 
of the Germany of a hundred years ago, when 
a score of capital cities like Munich, Dresden, 
Frankfort, Cologne, and Weimar competed 
with one another in education, in art, in the 
refinements and amenities of civilization ? 
Was not Germany a greater cultural force 
when Bavaria, Baden, Saxony, and a dozen 



ENCOURAGE THE SMALL NATIONS 219 

states and free cities produced their philoso- 
phers, poets, and artists, as they did before 
the Prussian reduced their artistic develop- 
ment to the materialistic ambitions of the 
Hohenzollern dynasty ? Has modern Germany 
produced a group of men comparable to Goethe, 
Schiller, Lessing, Wagner, Beethoven, Fichte, 
Heine, Kant, Humboldt, and the score of other 
intellectuals whose work has been an inspiration 
to all peoples ? 

Will any one familiar with the history of 
Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland 
contend that their contributions to the world 
would be greater if they were under the hege- 
mony of some other Power ? These states 
have contributed as many men, possibly more 
men, of distinction in proportion to their pop- 
ulation than have any of the greater states. 
They have built splendid capital cities, like 
Brussels, Copenhagen, and the cities of southern 
Germany. They have contributed political 
ideas. They have been centres of art and learn- 
ing. They point the pathway to the greater 
Powers in many lines of endeavor. Belgium, 
close packed with people, was the home of 
internationalism. She had developed a won- 



220 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

derful transportation system. She had the 
highest export trade per capita of any country 
in Europe. Even though a free-trade country, 
none of the greater Powers had been able to 
outsell her at home or abroad. She was the 
keenest competitor of England and Germany 
in Europe. 

Holland, too, has an inspiring history. She 
has been the cradle of political and religious 
liberty. Her cities have charm, and her people 
enjoy a standard of living higher than any 
of the surrounding Powers. Switzerland has 
given political democracy a new significance. 
In her mountain fastnesses she has safeguarded 
the right of local self-government, of individual 
and personal liberty, and to-day is one of the 
most contented and prosperous countries of 
Europe. Denmark is the world's agricultural 
experiment station. She has completely 
democratized her government. She has put 
an end to the old feudal regime. She has dis- 
tributed the land among the peasants and 
reduced ignorance to the vanishing-point. She 
feeds England and exports cattle to Germany. 
In some respects her educational system is 
the most remarkable in the world. No coun- 



ENCOURAGE THE SMALL NATIONS 221 

try in Europe enjoys a higher standard of com- 
fort or more universal education or possesses 
a greater sense of personal dignity than does 
this little country in the northwest corner of 
Europe. 

Moreover, it is the small states that are free. 
It is they who have kept liberty alive. This 
was true in ancient and mediaeval times. Lib- 
erty first issued from Greece, where it made 
its wonderful contributions to the world; con- 
tributions that have not been equalled by any 
modern state. Rome, a city state, was a 
republic. She lost her liberties when she be- 
came an empire. It was the cities of mediaeval 
Italy that called civilization to life after the 
long submergence of Europe in the dark ages. 
They produced the greatest artists of the world. 
They developed banking. They lured learning 
from the East and competed for poets, philoso- 
phers, and men of distinction. The Renaissance 
came to Europe not through the great states 
but by way of the cities of Italy and central 
Europe. Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Padua 
were centres of political and intellectual lib- 
erty, which they lost when their rulers went 
out to the conquest of the world. 



222 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Liberty came to central Europe through the 
cities of the Netherlands and south Germany. 
The towns secured charters. They made war 
on the feudal barons. They created represen- 
tative institutions. They developed demo- 
cratic forms. The guild system, which issued 
from these little democracies, was the highest 
form of industrial democracy the world has 
ever known. 

The free towns of Europe vied with one 
another in architecture. They erected great 
cathedrals that remain the ornaments of Eu- 
rope. They built town-halls and guild palaces. 
Liberty in Europe issued from the small state, 
not from the feudal barons or the Kings, and 
this heritage of freedom has never died in the 
little countries of Belgium and Holland, in 
which it had its birth. 

The history of the world is a plea for the 
small state. And if we could free our mind 
from the conception that bigness is greatness, 
we would see that there is little justification 
in the assumption of the superiority of the 
large state. The world has lost far more than 
it has gained from the suppression of the hun- 
dred-odd states, principalities, and free cities 



EXCOURAGE THE SMALL XATIOXS 223 

that have been merged into the German Em- 
pire. Would not civilization be enriched if 
Bohemia, Poland, Finland, Ukrania, Ireland, 
and the Balkan states were given an oppor- 
tunity to develop their life and make their 
contribution to the world ? Have we not ex- 
acted a senseless tribute not only from sub- 
ject peoples but from the world as well by the 
assumption that civilization is promoted by 
bigness and population and power ? 



CHAPTER XXIII 

PAX ECONOMICA 

A peace interested in the development of 
the world would prepare the way for universal 
free trade. It would make possible the razing 
of customs barriers, which have been a fruitful 
cause of war. With protective tariffs abolished 
people would trade with one another on natural 
terms. They would produce the things they 
were best fitted to produce; the things for 
which they have the greatest aptitude. Under 
existing conditions and the ever-present menace 
of the war each nation must encourage its iron 
and steel industry, the building of ships, the 
development of minerals, the making of all 
kinds of equipment, the production of many 
raw materials in order that it may at all times 
be ready for war. The military state must 
be self-contained. It must have iron, coal, 
oil, copper, and all of the things which enter 
into the mechanism of military and naval power. 
Protectionism is in part at least a product of 
the military state. 

224 



PAX ECOXOMICA 225 

Free trade will weaken boundary-lines. 
Warring states will tend to be toward one an- 
other as are the states of the American nation; 
as are the states of Germany. Arizona, Kansas, 
Mississippi do not chafe because they are not 
great magazines of industry. They are con- 
tent to produce the things with which nature 
endowed them. France does not take kindly 
to industry. Her instincts are for agriculture, 
for the refinements and the beautiful things 
of the world. The people of Italy are instinc- 
tively artists. They care little for industry. 
Industry is forced upon them by the necessity 
for self-preservation born of exaggerated na- 
tionalism. A peace with free trade will end 
these hothouse growths found in every na- 
tion. It will create a life responsive to the 
gifts, the aptitudes and desires of people. 

That protective tariffs are provocative of 
conflict has long been recognized. Many states- 
men hold that they are the main causes of 
war. This was the opinion of Cobden and 
Bright, who shaped the destinies of the British 
Empire for a generation along democratic lines. 
J hey challenged the old colonial policies. They 
assailed the protective tariff. They opposed 



226 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the "closed door" or any artificial aid to trade 
and commerce. They championed free trade 
and equal opportunity for all nations. They 
ridiculed the idea that the poverty of one coun- 
try could increase the well-being of another. 
They opposed trade monopolies. They be- 
lieved in free competition in every field of en- 
deavor. They urged that British legislation 
should aim at the prosperity of all countries. 
And Great Britain grew in wealth and power. 
She was at peace with the world. There was 
no demand for a great navy or military estab- 
lishment. This was the most generous period 
in the history of England. 

Cobden believed that all wars were either 
dynastic or economic. He believed that eco- 
nomic wars could be ended by freedom, by 
equality of opportunity. It was his successors, 
notably Disraeli, who turned England toward 
imperialism. Cobden was an idealist who 
believed that the well-being of England was 
dependent upon the well-being of the world 
at large. And he urged freedom of trade as 
possibly the greatest of all agencies for per- 
manent peace. Speaking of the far-reaching 
influence of free trade, he said: 



PAX ECO NO MIC A 227 

"I have been accused of looking too much 
to material interests. Nevertheless, I can 
say that I have taken as large and great a view 
of the effects of this mighty principle as ever 
did any man who dreamt over it in his study. 
I believe that the physical gain will be the 
smallest gain to humanity, from the success 
of this principle. I look further; I see in the 
free-trade principle that which shall act on 
the moral world as the principle of gravitation 
in the universe — drawing men together, thrust- 
ing aside the antagonism of race and creed 
and language, and uniting us in the bond of 
eternal peace. I have looked even further. 
I have speculated and probably dreamt in the 
dim future — ay, a thousand years hence — I 
have speculated on what the effect of the 
triumph of this principle may be. I believe 
that the effect will be to change the face of 
the world, so as to introduce a system of gov- 
ernment entirely distinct from that which 
now prevails. I believe that the desire and 
motive for large and mighty empires, for gigantic 
armies and great navies — for those materials 
which are used for the destruction of life and 
the desolation of the rewards of labor — will 
die away. I believe that such things will cease 
to be necessary, or to be used, when man be- 
comes of one family and freely exchanges the 
fruits of his labor with his brother man. I 
believe that, if we could be allowed to reappear 
on this sublunary scene, we should see at a 
far distant period the governing system of 



228 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

this world revert to something like the municipal 
system; and I believe that the speculative 
philosopher of a thousand years hence will 
date the greatest revolution in the world's his- 
tory from the triumph of the principle which 
we have met here to advance." 1 

Never before did a war-weary world so stand 
in need of such men as Cobden and Bright to 
inspire idealism and guide the conferees of 
the peace negotiations along lines of freedom — 
freedom of trade, freedom of the seas, freedom 
from imperialism, freedom of people, freedom 
from privilege and monopoly in every form. 

1 Speech of January 15, 1846. See Hirst, Free Trade and the 
Manchester School ', p. 229. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
END IMPERIALISM 

The alternative to imperialism is freedom, 
freedom for the whole subject world. And 
freedom is the only alternative to imperialism, 
just as it is the only alternative to privilege 
in any form. Freedom is the great solvent of 
conflict, of suspicion, of wars. It is the solvent 
of imperialism as well. 

Freedom to the subject world should be 
America's contribution to the peace confer- 
ence. 

Only through freedom will the world be 
brought together. Only when there is equal 
opportunity for all and special privileges for 
none will diplomacy no longer seek advantages 
that should be gained by skill, by ability, by 
services rendered. Then men's minds will turn 
from war and preparations for war as an agency 
of conquest to peaceful means of acquiring 
favor. With freedom the psychology of the 
world will change just as it has wherever priv- 
ileges and monopolies have been abolished 
229 



230 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

and the mind of man has been permitted to. 
operate through natural and peaceful channels. 
A free world involves political autonomy 
and the right of self-determination to con- 
quered nations and subject peoples. Belgium 
must be restored to complete independence and 
indemnified. Alsace-Lorraine must be freed. 
The people of Russia, Finland, Poland, Ukrania, 
Lithuania, Courland, the Baltic and Black Sea 
provinces should be permitted to decide their 
own destiny free from outside coercion. Siberia 
and the Russian Pacific coast should be re- 
leased from any penetration or coercion by 
the Allies. The Balkan states should no longer 
be the pawns of diplomacy. They should be 
granted autonomy, and safeguarded against one 
another and the outside world by an interna- 
tional tribunal, supported by a sufficient armed 
force, to free the world from this powder maga- 
zine which has embroiled Europe for the greater 
part of a century. Turkey should be neutral 
territory, and Constantinople and the Dar- 
danelles should be converted into interna- 
tional territory so far as is necessary to insure 
the freedom of the Black Sea and the Straits 
to the Mediterranean. Constantinople should 



END IMPERIALISM 231 

be made a great free port under an inter- 
national commission as is the mouth of the 
Danube. The whole of western Asia includ- 
ing Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Persia 
should be internationalized and these states 
be organized as independent commonwealths, 
and their political and economic autonomy be 
insured by a Mediterranean tribunal as pro- 
posed in a previous chapter. 

All of South and Central Africa should be 
federated into international territory under 
an administrative council representative of the 
Powers and pledged to the protection of the 
native races from exploitation and slavery. 
The widest possible autonomy should be granted 
the Filipinos, Porto Ricans, and other peoples 
under the imperialistic control of the United 
States. Ireland should be granted the fullest 
possible autonomy to develop. Her grant of 
political power should be so generous and so 
unequivocal that the Irish question would be 
forever ended. It should include control of 
education, religion, local government, taxa- 
tion, and all other activities that are involved 
in the self-development of the Irish people. 
The Indian and Egyptian question should be 



232 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

settled by legislation which frees the nationalis- 
tic aspirations of these peoples and, what is 
quite as important, ends the economic and 
financial burdens and obligations under which 
they labor. 

The world will never be at peace so long as 
it is governed on the assumption that only 
the white man is fit for self-government; it 
will never be at peace so long as the small states 
are viewed as pawns and buffers for the greater 
Powers. The slave-owner was in bondage no 
less than the slave. And the greater Powers 
are in slavery so long as they hold others in 
subjection. There can be no freedom to the 
greater Powers, so long as they hold other 
nations, races, and peoples in bondage. This 
is an inevitable curse of empire as it is of 
chattel slavery. It destroys master as well 
as slave. 

The conquered world must be freed if only 
to free civilization from the bondage of fear, 
of armaments, of war. For these are the inevi- 
table costs of empire. 

Economic freedom should likewise be as- 
sured to all peoples. There should be an end 
to the idea that the world belongs only to the 



END IMPERIALISM 233 

strong, and that weak and undeveloped peoples 
may be exploited by forced labor, by taxation, 
or by any other means. Freedom would end 
the "closed door," "exclusive concessions," 
"spheres of influence." What possible right 
has any nation to dictate the economic life of 
China, India, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Morocco, 
or even of the Philippines, or Porto Rico ? The 
closed door is one of the causes of war. More- 
over, it means that the development of sub- 
ject peoples shall be sacrificed to the greed 
and private profit of economic groups and 
classes within the stronger Powers. 

There should be no exclusive markets, no 
rivers or harbors controlled by a single Power 
or group of Powers. Trade with subject peoples 
should be opened to the world on equal terms. 
There should be equality of opportunity in 
the development of the trade and resources 
of the backward countries. There should be 
no exclusive grants or privileges of lending 
money to the monopolists of England, France, 
Germany, or the United States, for such ex- 
clusive grants lead not only to the destruc- 
tion of the weaker peoples: they lead to con- 
flicts between the greater Powers as well. 



234 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Moreover, the last fifty years has seen a 
succession of conflicts over these aggressions 
on the part of the greater Powers. Europe 
has been in a state of nervous apprehension. 
Public opinion has been fanned into flame over 
the message of the Kaiser to the Boers, over 
Morocco, Koweit, and Venezuela. Wars have 
sprung from these conflicts. China has been 
made subject to the greater Powers. Financial 
imperialism is a continuing mine ready to ex- 
plode at any moment through the threat of 
one nation to the imperialistic interests of an- 
other. 

Peace should end the activities of high 
finance. It should seal the doom of dollar diplo- 
macy and financial imperialism. The doctrine 
that the "flag follows the investor," no matter 
how usurious his contracts or how fraudulent 
his concessions may be, should be superseded 
by the doctrine that the investor assumes his 
own risk; he takes his chances, and he shall 
not be permitted to call upon his country from 
which he has expatriated his wealth to insure 
his profits or to send its youth with machine- 
guns to collect his debts. 

The idea that the flag should follow the 



END IMPERIALISM 235 

investor is not recognized as between the 
greater Powers. English investments in Amer- 
ica, American investments in England or France 
have no other guarantee than the good faith 
and the laws of these countries. Force is only 
applied between the greater Powers and the 
weaker states. And as a result of the assumed 
right of the greater nation to protect its sub- 
jects' possessions there has arisen the correl- 
ative obligation to protect them against any 
other Power. Thus the exploiting activities 
of the privileged classes have imperilled the 
safety and security of the world. 1 

A democratic peace must protect the weak 
as well as the strong, if only for the purpose 
of securing a permanent peace. Exclusive 
possessions and privileges should be ended, and 

1 Mr. H. L. Brailsford, the brilliant British student of im- 
perialism, writing in 1914 on the increase in armaments said: 

"If we were to take the sum by which British and German arma- 
ments have increased in the present century, it would be possible 
to allocate the increase, roughly, somewhat as follows: 50 per cent. 
or less for the settlement of the question, "Who shall exploit 
Morocco?"; 25 per cent, or more for the privilege of building a 
railway to Bagdad and beyond it; 25 per cent, or more for the 
future eventualities which remain unsettled — the fate of the 
Portuguese colonies in Africa and the destinies of China." — 
Wat of Sltcl and Gold. 



236 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the world should be united into a league for 
the purpose of internationalizing all backward 
countries, and for guaranteeing and protect- 
ing the liberties of subject peoples. 

The United States should be the first to 
lay its possessions on the table of renunciation. 
We should admit that the Philippine Islands 
and Porto Rico are the spoils of war. Our only 
rightful claim to these islands is the fear that 
some other Power may seize them and use 
them as a basis of operations against us. This 
is the only possible justification of the insistence 
made by some that America should place the 
whole of the West Indian archipelago and of 
Central America under our power. But the 
United States has no rights in these territories, 
no matter how they may have been obtained. 
And, however beneficent our rule may be, or 
however much the life of these subject peoples 
may have been advanced, these gains can be 
as readily assured by international guarantees, 
while our own hands can be cleansed of im- 
perialistic aggressions by their release. And 
however much we may have done for the Porto 
Ricans, the Filipinos, and the Hawaiians along 
educational lines, however we may have im- 



END IMPERIALISM 237 

proved the health, the morals, and the security 
of these islands, the question still remains as to 
whether we have not, under cover of such "pro- 
tection, robbed them of their lands, their re- 
sources, their opportunities for economic free- 
dom. And economic freedom is the essence of 
liberty. A people can never be free if their lands 
are owned by alien capitalists, and the people 
reduced to agricultural laborers but little better 
than serfs, as they are in Hawaii, as they were 
in Mexico, as they have been by imperialistic 
interests in every other part of the globe. 

The weak and subject peoples should be 
lifted from the servitude to which the world 
has reduced them. They have a right to their 
own lands, to their own cattle, to their own 
labor. Mexico has a right to work its own 
mines, to levy its own taxes, to control its own 
internal affairs. Persia should be re-established 
and assistance rather than intrigue should be 
tendered to its aspiring ambitions. China 
should be freed from the penetration and 
menace of the greater Powers. South Africa 
should be joined into a federation of states 
whose political integrity should be guaranteed 
by all the Powers. Then it will be possible 



238 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

for the advances of civilization, the contribu- 
tions of steam, electricity, and surplus wealth 
to flow to these states and promote their 
development without sacrifice of the native 
peoples. Then our boasted claims of civilizing 
the natives will have some basis of justification, 
then rum and machine-guns will not be the 
advance agents of Christian nations. Rather 
they will be abolished and our emissaries will 
be representative of peaceful international 
justice. 

How can this be achieved ? Only by a new 
kind of internationalism. The greatest war 
of the world should be ended by the greatest 
peace of the world. The most unholy assault 
upon weak and dependent peoples should be 
followed by the most righteous protection of 
weak peoples. Just as the old regime in France, 
with its unconcern for the peasants, was fol- 
lowed by the day of renunciation, when the 
grand seigneurs joined in a voluntary relin- 
quishment of one after another of their feu- 
dal privileges, when in a frenzy of liberalism 
they gave up their means of oppression, so 
this war should be followed by a day of re- 
nunciation, when the imperialists of the 



END IMPERIALISM 239 

world and the congress of peace unite in de- 
claring for a peace with freedom, liberty, and 
equality to all the world. A peace conference 
animated by such motives would find ready 
means of internationalization. It would create 
an international administrative commission or 
tribunal to which would be intrusted the con- 
trol of the lands, rights, and privileges relin- 
quished by the individual Powers. It would 
become a guardian of the black, brown, and 
yellow peoples, of strategic harbors, of raw 
materials; of the markets which have been 
appropriated by one Power or another. It 
would be authorized to co-operate with these 
states in arranging their customs tariffs, the 
terms of concessions and development of har- 
bors and waterways. It would receive all 
their applications for loans. It would examine 
the terms of loans and open up their under- 
writing to all nations on equal terms, or would 
distribute them to the financiers of the several 
countries on some pro rata basis. It would 
be the intermediary of all concessions for rail- 
roads, mines, and the development of raw 
materials, which concessions would be offered 
to the investors of other countries on terms 



2 4 o THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

which would insure the investment and pro- 
tect the subject states. In case of trouble it 
would itself investigate conditions. The world 
would not have to rely upon the statements of 
irresponsible journalists. If rights were vio- 
lated, if continued revolutions jeopardized the 
internationalism of the world, such tribunal 
would have power to intervene. And in a 
great majority of cases where individual states 
have intervened it has been found that the 
disturbances have either been fomented by 
privileged interests, or the dependent state 
has been refused an opportunity even to utilize 
the loans it has made for the development 
work for which they were contracted. 1 

1 This idea has been discussed with approval in England where 
it has been suggested that some sort of international control 
should be provided for western Asia and for Africa as well. Mr. 
H. G. Wells discusses the international state in What is Coming, 
while the New Statesman (issue of September 23, 1916) outlines a 
plan for the international control of Africa as follows: 

"The ideal solution of the whole problem, we suggest, would 
be the deliberate abolition of all international fences in the tropics. 
All central Africa, from the boundaries of Morocco and Egypt 
on the north, to those of Rhodesia on the south, should be neu- 
tralized and administered by an International Commission for 
the benefit primarily of the races which alone can live there, and 
secondarily of the traders of all countries on equal terms. But 
ideal solutions are not always practicable, and it must be ad- 
mitted that the revolution here suggested could not be brought 



END IMPERIALISM 241 

The British Labor party has definitely de- 
clared for such an international control of 
tropical Africa in its statement on December 28, 
1917. It declares with regard to the colonies 
of the several belligerents in tropical Africa: 

"In view of the fact that it is impractical 
here to leave the various peoples concerned 

about by a mere stroke of a pen. For the creation of an inter- 
national government on such a scale there are no precedents 
worth mentioning, and to determine its composition, its powers, 
and its position in relation to national governments would be a 
very difficult matter. Nevertheless, we believe that if the ideal 
were consciously accepted by the chief parties concerned its 
realization would only be a matter of time; and there would be 
an opportunity in the immediate future for the application of the 
fundamental principle involved. If the Allies determine at the 
end of the war to retain control of the German Colonies, they 
might and ought to give a solemn undertaking to hold those 
territories in trust for civilization, to treat the interests of the 
natives therein as paramount, and to preserve in perpetuity the 
principle of the Open Door in the fullest sense of the term. If 
at the same time France and Great Britain consented to make 
their own tropical dependencies in Africa subject to the same 
trust, the moral effect of the undertaking as a demonstration of 
our good faith would obviously be enormously enhanced. The 
sacrifice, if any, would be small, whilst the principle thus estab- 
lished of giving all countries an equal place in the sun (as far 
as this great area is concerned) would be of inestimable value as 
a step toward the permanent solution of the African problem. 
The further step to international control would be merely one of 
machinery. As an alternative to the not very enticing prospect 
of the re-establishment of the status quo ante in Africa, we do not 
think this proposal is Utopian." 



242 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

to settle their own destinies, it is suggested 
that the interests of humanity would be best 
served by the full and frank abandonment of 
all the belligerents of any dreams of an African 
empire; the transfer of the present colonies 
of the European Powers in tropical Africa, 
however the limits of this area may be defined, 
to the proposed supernational authority or 
League of Nations herein suggested, and their 
administration under the legislative council of 
that authority as a single independent African 
state, with its own trained staff, on the princi- 
ples of (i) taking account in each locality of the 
wishes of the people when these can be ascer- 
tained; (2) protection of the natives against 
exploitation and oppression, and the preserva- 
tion of their tribal interests; (3) all revenues 
raised to be expended for the welfare and de- 
velopment of the African state itself; and (4) 
the permanent neutralization of this African 
state and its abstention from participation in 
international rivalries or any future wars." 

Such a tribunal would be to the present 
imperialistic world what a court of justice is 
to the duel. It would substitute juridical pro- 
ceedings preceded by investigations . for the 
battleships which settled the fate of Egypt, 
Morocco, and China; it would end such acts 
as the sending of the Panther to Agadir, the 
intrigues in Persia, and the conflicts between 



END IMPERIALISM 243 

Russia and Japan over Manchuria, of the 
Powers over the Mediterranean, of the United 
States in Mexico, and of all the Powers in 
China. 

The peace that follows will be an empty 
peace if it is an imperialistic peace. It will 
be a barren compensation to a war-weary world 
which has been kept in a state of nervous ap- 
prehension for fifty years over the intrigues 
and diplomacy, the bluster and the campaigns 
for armament which have been carried on now 
in one Power, now in another, as a result of 
reliance on force as a means of promoting and 
protecting the economic interests of the ruling 
classes of the greater Powers. 



CHAPTER XXV 

AMERICA AND THE MENACE OF 
IMPERIALISM 

War is the inevitable outcome of the im- 
perialistic struggle which has been going on 
all over the world during the past fifty years. 
And wars will continue, and armaments will 
be perfected with industrial expansion, the 
increase in the political power of the industrial 
classes and the struggle for markets which are 
only to be found in foreign countries. There 
is bound to be collision so long as the world 
is parcelled out into possessions from which 
other nations can be excluded. This is in- 
evitable. And this is one of the important 
problems of peace. It is highly important to 
the United States. Not because foreign trade 
is so necessary to us as a people, but because 
of the insistence of the great monopolized in- 
dustries which are already so powerful in our 
life, and which, even before the war, were de- 
claring for "dollar diplomacy," for the support 

244 



AMERICA AXD IMPERIALISM 245 

of the State Department and of the President 
for aid in the promotion of loans, concessions, 
and privileges in Mexico and Central America, 
in South America, and in China. These in- 
terests have grown vastly more powerful as a 
result of the war. Surplus w r ealth has appeared 
in America. We have become a creditor na- 
tion. Our banking resources are greater than 
those of the imperial banks of the rest of the 
warring world. On the termination of the war 
we shall be almost the only country to which 
the world can come for loans and aid in the 
development of their resources. Billions of 
dollars will be sought from us, not alone by 
Europe but by Asia, Africa, the Near East, 
South and Central America. Already the 
great iron and steel interests are looking toward 
the iron-ore deposits of China. Suggestions 
have appeared in the press as to a financial 
rapprochement between the banking interests 
of England and the United States for the ex- 
ploitation of the resources of other countries. 
A continuous and quiet propaganda is being 
carried on for the creation of a public opinion 
that will support the doctrine of diplomatic 
support to trade, the making of loans, and 



246 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

the export of "surplus" capital to other coun- 
tries, and the necessity for a great navy as a 
potential and menacing agency to other Powers 
and weaker states. 

' Economic imperialism is always subtle. How 
much more insistent these agencies will be 
when peace ends the profitable contracts, when 
the shipping and industries of the warring 
Powers find their way into markets now oc- 
cupied by us> when our colossal ship-build- 
ing programme has made this country a 
great maritime power, and our iron, steel, and 
munition industries, our wool and our cotton 
factories, and a multitude of mushroom in- 
dustries that have come into existence are 
threatened with closing, and millions of men 
are confronted with the possibility of reduced 
wages or of being thrown out of employment 
altogether. Then America will be in a recep- 
tive mood for a "strong" foreign policy, for 
the use of our diplomatic agencies, and even 
our navy for the promotion of overseas trade 
and commerce and for finding new territories 
to be exploited by American finance. 

This is the after-war menace. It cannot be 
lightly disposed of. It is the menace of imperial- 



AMERICA AXD IMPERIALISM 247 

ism and of future wars as well. It is also a men- 
ace to democracy. 

For our own protection, if for no other, the 
peace which follows should end imperialism. 
It should end the idea that the lands of helpless 
peoples are the happy hunting-grounds of ex- 
ploiters, and that their wealth and the labor 
of the people may be despoiled by the nation 
which by chance, by intrigue, or by conquest 
first plants its flag upon their shores. 

America has a right to insist that the sacri- 
fices it has made in the name of democracy 
shall not be used against democracy, and that 
the peace conferees shall not employ the as- 
sistance we have loaned to the struggle for 
humanity against humanity. Belgium, Al- 
sace-Lorraine, and Serbia are not the only 
sacrifices on the altar of Macht. There are 
many other races and peoples that are claim- 
ing the right to self-determination. They are 
not alone in Europe. They too are entitled 
to political freedom; they too have aspira- 
tions to be assured. 

And the peace which follows should not be a 
white man's peace alone. It should be a white, 
yellow, and black man's peace. It is not neces- 



248 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

sary that backward peoples shall be thrown 
back to the old savagery or that the world 
shall exclude itself from the food and the raw 
materials in which it stands in need. All this 
can be assured in another way as has been sug- 
gested in the preceding chapters. But America 
and the whole Christian world has a right to 
insist that the professions we have been making 
of carrying civilization to other peoples shall not 
be a blind for exploitation, for oppression, for 
the sale of munitions and the reduction of other 
peoples to a slavery that has been abolished at 
home. The world owes it to itself to remove the 
reproach which has come to be identified with 
its professions in every weak and backward 
country on the earth. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
DIPLOMACY 

Diplomacy is a feudal survival. It is an 
anachronism. Up to very recently the am- 
bassador was the personal representative of 
the King. He did not represent the nation. 
He was the person of the sovereign in a for- 
eign court. He enjoyed the protection and 
many of the prerogatives of his master. His 
person was inviolate. So was the embassy. 
It was the territory of the King in another 
land. This is the historical origin of modern 
diplomacy. 

Ambassadors were and still are chosen almost 

exclusively from the old aristocracy. They 

come almost exclusively from the feudal classes. 

The foreign secretary comes from the same 

class. Foreign representatives are not chosen 

by the people; they are not even appointed 

by Parliament or by any popular process. The 

only contact the Deoples of different nations 

249 



250 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

have with one another is through men who 
are in no way responsible to the people. They 
have but little if any sympathy with democ- 
racy. They represent their class and little else. 
The diplomacy of the world is still dynastic 
and feudal. Even the United States chooses her 
ambassadors almost exclusively from men of 
wealth. 

The diplomatic class remains a caste apart. 
It associates almost exclusively with the old 
nobility. Men enter the service young. They 
are educated and live their lives away from 
the currents of present-day thought. Only by 
chance do they know anything about what 
concerns the common people. A man must 
first of all have a substantial private income 
to enter the foreign service. That is often 
required by law. In other countries it is re- 
quired by the expense involved in maintain- 
ing the dignity of the country in a foreign 
court. 

Diplomacy maintains its castelike exclusion 
in yet another way. The Foreign Office is not 
responsible to the nation. It is scarcely re- 
sponsible to Parliament. This is so even in 
countries where responsible governments exist. 



DIPLOMACY 251 

Foreign affairs are secret. Even the ministry 
is often ignorant of treaties and engagements. 
When made they are sealed up in the archives 
of the Foreign Office They frequently come 
to light only after the country has been com- 
mitted to war. Even members of Parliament 
may not know the engagements of their coun- 
try. This is another survival of mediaeval 
traditions when the ambassador was the per- 
sonal representative of the King. Foreign 
affairs were the concern of the ruler, and no 
one else. And modern states have continued 
the tradition of secrecy. 

If a member of the parliamentary body re- 
quests information as to foreign affairs he is 
informed "reasons of state" make it inad- 
visable for the public to know. 

Here we have another cause of war. The 
diplomatic caste does not represent peoples. 
It believes in war, in its class, in the honor of 
nations, in the old mediaeval idea of the state. 
Diplomats are indifferent to democracy. They 
do not believe that the world can be carried 
on in any other way or by any other class than 
it has been for centuries. 

Diplomacy is not frank. It breeds distrust. 



252 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Even its language is a language of its own. 
In a crisis it is likely to be misunderstood. It 
is used to escape responsibility, often to be 
susceptible of conflicting interpretations. Wars 
have been due to the temper and the personal 
intrigues of diplomats. 

In recent years diplomacy has become an 
agency of business, of economic penetration, 
and financial imperialism. It induces weak 
countries to buy machine-guns and battle- 
ships as a condition to the lending of money. 
It aids bankers and concession seekers. It 
promotes the closed door and discriminations. 
The Foreign Office of Germany was merged 
with the Krupps, the Deutsche Bank, and the 
industrial groups of the country. The negotia- 
tions of the Powers over the Bagdad Railway, 
over concessions and loans in Morocco, Egypt, 
and Turkey, the penetration of the Powers 
into China, and the disputes over South Africa 
were all interwoven with the activities of the 
big business interests of the European coun- 
tries which frankly recognize the economic 
character of present-day diplomacy. 

Secret diplomacy, private diplomacy, irre- 
sponsible diplomacy, is an anachronism. It is 



DIPLOMACY 253 

a menace to the world. It is the most un- 
protected spot in democracy. In the United 
States it is a political affront. There is no 
reason why we should adjust ourselves to the 
survival of dynastic traditions and compromise 
ourselves with the class relationships of 
mediaeval Europe. 

For even we have class diplomacy, the diplo- 
macy of business. Our foreign representatives 
are successful merchants, bankers, corporation 
lawyers. They seek a foreign post for social 
recognition. And they carry to their posts not 
only a lack of training, of knowledge, and of 
language, but what is far more dangerous, they 
carry the attitude of mind of the class from 
which they come. 

Diplomacy should be public and open. It 
should be responsible to Parliament and Con- 
gress. There should be the fullest discussion 
of foreign engagements and treaties. There are 
objections to such publicity, it is true. There 
are many matters which it would be easier to 
dispose of in executive session. But whatever 
the objections, they pale in comparison with the 
evils of secrecy and the disposal of the foreign 
relations of a great state by an appointee of the 



254 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

Executive, whose method of selection is either 
by birth or as a result of an election which 
turns not on foreign relations but on some 
accidental issue that happens to be before the 
nation. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 

In the opening chapter the new economic 
internationalism, which has changed the face 
of the world during the last fifty years, was 
described as the ultimate background of the 
war. It came into conflict with the narrow 
nationalistic conception of the state which 
controls the foreign ambitions and policies of 
the greater Powers. As was there stated: 

"Our ideas of the state are still those of 
earlier generations. We trace the limits of a 
state as they appear on the map. We think 
of England, France, Germany, Russia, and 
Austria-Hungary as confined within eighteenth- 
century borders. This was the Europe of yes- 
terday. It is not the Europe of to-day. States 
have burst their political confines. They live 
outside their territorial boundaries. Their 
economic interests are as wide as the world. 
Their foreign connections are only less vital 
to their lives than their internal affairs. Na- 
tions have become international. Their wealth 
is scattered all over the world. Their life is 
interlaced with the life of other states. And 
the sovereignty of states has gone out with 

255 



256 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

their wealth to the most distant parts of the 
world. It has penetrated into every continent 
and to every sea. 

"The outside connections of states are as 
sensitive as the old national boundaries. Trade, 
shipping, and finance have interlocked the 
divided world into a world-state. But the old 
political concepts remain. The new is in con- 
flict with the old. Any threat to economic 
connections or distant relations is immediately 
registered in the Foreign Office. It becomes a 
matter of diplomacy. The existence of a na- 
tion may be threatened by failure to safeguard 
economic connections. That is one reason for 
war. The world we assume to exist has passed 
away. The rulers of Europe, trained in the 
old nationalism, met this economic change by 
imperialism. They could only think in im- 
perialistic terms. They viewed distant terri- 
tories as they viewed their lands at home. They 
keep other Powers out. That is the way rulers 
had done for hundreds of years. That was the 
only way the ruling classes, for the most part 
still feudal, knew how to adjust the old na- 
tionalism to the new internationalism. The 
need of food, of raw materials, of markets, of 
opportunities for trade, of strategic routes and 
harbors, could only be secured by possession." 

The French Revolution destroyed the old 
regime. It was a regime of privilege, monopoly, 
caste, and the subordination of classes and in- 



THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 257 

dividuals to the ruling aristocracy. It also 
destroyed the endless restraints and restrictions 
which confined classes, groups, individuals, 
and all industry. There was no freedom, either 
political or economic, and there was no belief 
in freedom. Individuals were born into a caste 
from which they might not emerge. Every- 
thing was fixed by laws and traditions in the 
interest of the old aristocracy. The economic 
life was restricted and regulated as minutely 
as were persons. There were tariff barriers 
within and without the country; there were 
monopolies of food, of the highways, of the 
grinding of flour and the making of wine. All 
life was interlaced with privileges of every 
kind to industry, to agriculture, to the pro- 
fessions. The assumption was that the state, 
the peasant, and the worker belonged to the 
ruling class to do with as it liked. 

For hundreds of years the ruling classes 
had been creating one privilege after another; 
burdens had been added to burdens and regu- 
lations to regulations until the workers and 
the peasants had become little better than 
beasts of burden. Such was the feudal regime 
against which Rousseau, Diderot, Turgot, 



258 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

and Quesnay protested. Such was the regime 
which the French Revolution on the continent 
and the writings of Adam Smith, and the ideal- 
ism of Cobden and Bright in England forever 
shattered. And the freeing of the world from 
the constrictive laws and regulations made 
possible the marvellous advance which followed. 
During the nineteenth century the feudal 
idea of the state was applied to the outside 
world. It was treated as a private possession. 
It was constricted by the idea of exclusive 
possession. Now, in the twentieth century, 
a war-weary world waits on another renuncia- 
tion of privileges, monopolies, spheres of in- 
fluence, and the limitations which the greater 
Powers have imposed upon the world. It waits 
on the renunciation of imperialism, on the 
ending of control of other peoples' lands, of 
trade routes, of strategic points and harbors, 
of tariffs, of trade, of commerce, of the rela- 
tions of peoples. The twentieth century calls 
to freedom in international affairs as the nine- 
teenth century called to freedom in domestic 
affairs. And just as the release of continental 
Europe resulted in the freeing of ability and 
talent and awakened the marvellous develop- 



TEE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 259 

ment of the past century, so the freeing of the 
world in its international relations will lead 
to a similar development of nations, races, 
and peoples. 

This new freedom in international relations 
should include: 

One, the freedom of the seas and the water 
and land routes of trade and commerce in every 
portion of the earth. 

Two, freedom of markets, of trade, of com- 
merce and the substitution of the open door 
for spheres of influence and preferential tariffs 
in all exploited territories and especially in 
Africa, Asia, and the islands of the Pacific. 

Three, free and equal access to raw materials 
in all dependent and subject territories. 

Four, equality of opportunity of investment, 
of development, of "exploitation," and of eco- 
nomic contact with backward peoples and the 
protection of such peoples by international 
agreement through a tribunal pledged to equal- 
ity of opportunity and the safeguarding of the 
subject world from oppression. 

Five, and most important of all, the razing of 
all tariff barriers and the adoption of free trade 
by all of the greater Powers. 



260 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

To Richard Cobden free trade would end 
wars. It would weaken the nationalistic 
chauvinism that for fifty years has gone hand 
in hand with militarism in all of the great 
Powers. 

Peace should recognize that the old narrow 
nationalistic order is gone. Nations are no 
longer local territories, places upon the map. 
They are interrelated with the whole world. 
Their food and their raw materials, their goods, 
their wealth, and their ships are scattered on 
every sea. The life of the modern state is de- 
pendent upon free contact with other peoples. 

All this should be recognized. Previous 
peace congresses were inspired by the old dy- 
nastic, imperialistic, restrictive idea. They 
distributed the world in the interests of the 
ruling classes. There was no concern for little 
states, for subject peoples. There was no 
thought of freedom, liberty; equality of op- 
portunity. Rather the motive was monopoly, 
privilege, exclusive possessions. The peace 
which is to come must end this old order as 
the French Revolution ended the old order 
in the internal life of Europe. It must free 
the world from the idea that peace is possible 



THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 261 

with might. It must be a "Pax Economica" 
which frees trade and commerce, the sources 
of raw materials, and the waterways of the 
earth, and opens them up to all on equal terms. 

A peace inspired by such ideals would be 
so just it would live by its own justice. It 
would enforce itself as does a just contract. An 
imperialistic peace, on the other hand, will 
lead to imperialistic controversies just as it 
has in the past, for injustice always leads 
to conflict. It cannot be otherwise. Should 
a league to preserve the peace be created, its 
burdens would be greatly lightened under 
such a peace. The controversies to be ad- 
justed would be negligible in comparison with 
the maintenance of a world divided among 
the greater Powers. And such a division of the 
world cannot endure. It ought not to endure. 
It is merely a "Pax Romana," however dis- 
guised under high-sounding names it"may be. 

Moreover, a peace with freedom would make 
disarmament easy. There would be nothing to 
call peoples to arms if the world were open to 
all on equal terms. It would not then be neces- 
sary to maintain great navies to protect im- 
perialistic possessions and investments if they 



262 TEE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

do not exist. The trade, commerce, and activ- 
ities of the world would move freely if the 
world were free to receive them. 

Economic and political freedom will do to 
the twentieth century what the French Revo- 
lution did for the century just closed. It will 
stimulate the production of wealth. It will 
promote trade and commerce. It will en- 
courage friendly relations. It will redound to 
the material profit of the greater states as well 
as the lesser ones. This has always been the 
result of the ending of privilege, of the razing 
of tariff walls, of the ending of monopoly in 
any form. 

Such a peace would be supported by the 
moral forces of the world. It would have the 
support of democracy, of the small nations 
and of a world-wide public opinion that will 
be of great force in the years to follow. 

Such a peace should be stated in simple 
terms. There should be no weasel words to 
lead to controversy. There should be no 
secrecy about it. It should be open and public. 
There should be guarantees that no subsequent 
engagements would be entered into by in- 
dividual nations to violate its terms. And 



TEE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 263 

the treaty should be given broadcast to the 
world. It should be known to the peasant 
and the worker. Ever) r appeal should be made 
to public opinion to support it. And public 
opinion is a great force in international rela- 
tions when the facts are known. Even to-day 
the Powers are seeking to satisfy the neutral 
world as to the propriety of their violations 
of other peoples' territories, while in the face 
of the most grim necessities Switzerland, Hol- 
land, and Denmark have been protected against 
occupation. They have known no foreign 
troops. The three-mile limit on the high seas 
is observed. There are no naval battles with- 
in it. There are many instances of interna- 
tional freedom and equality, and they have 
made for peace in the main. There is still 
much sacredness about neutral soil and there 
would be far greater sacredness about free 
soil. 

A peace designed to make the world free 
involves a new diplomacy, a new kind of con- 
gress of nations, a new attitude of mind on 
the part of those who rule. It means an end 
of imperialism, the recognition of the principle 
of self-determination; it means that all states, 



264 THE ONLY POSSIBLE PEACE 

great and small, shall be encouraged to develop 
their institutions unmenaced by any other 
Power. It means that economic internation- 
alism shall be extended to the world, and. that 
those principles which we accept as the guiding 
rule of individual development shall be applied 
to states, races, and peoples as well. 

Such a peace means that the doors of the 
peace congress shall be open, that the dis- 
cussions shall be public, that small states shall 
have full and adequate representation of their 
own choosing. It means that the old secret 
diplomacy shall be abandoned, and that the 
world shall no longer be parcelled out as it 
was by the treaties of Vienna and Berlin. It 
means that the contribution of all peoples 
shall be encouraged, that free trade shall be 
promoted, that the seas and waterways to 
the seas shall be free. It means that a con- 
gress of peoples will seek to end wars by ending 
the cause of wars. For we are beginning to 
see that previous peace congresses laid the mines 
of war in the dishonest arrangements which 
they made for the power and profit of those 
who rule. 

With principles such as these animating a 



THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM 265 

peace conference, a true congress of nations 
would be possible; a congress inspired by the 
doctrine of equal rights for all and exclusive 
privileges for none. It would be a congress 
interested in recognizing right rather than 
might, in the redemption of waste places, the 
reclamation of exploited lands, the develop- 
ment of the world's resources. It would be 
a congress dedicated to the remaking of a civi- 
lization which for twenty centuries has been 
subject to the greed and power of the ruling 
classes of the earth. Such a congress would 
be interested in advancing the culture and 
civilization of the world rather than the pro- 
motion of the ambitions of the greater Powers 
or the ruling classes within these Powers. Such 
a peace would be a peace of idealism, of democ- 
racy, of liberty. It would be a peace that would 
survive by its own justice, and justice is the 
most enduring sanction that can be invoked 
in the world. 



